Tolowa Dunes State Park, Coastal state park in Del Norte County, United States.

Tolowa Dunes State Park is a coastal park in northern California near Crescent City, covering sand dunes, wetlands, two shallow coastal lakes, and open grasslands. Lake Earl and Lake Tolowa sit at the heart of the park, connected to each other and to the ocean by a network of marshes and dune corridors.

Tolowa Dunes State Park covers about 4,000 acres in Del Norte County and surrounds the 6,100-acre Lake Earl Wildlife Area. The Tolowa people lived in this area before American colonization in the 1850s. Their oral history records tectonic activity along the Cascadia subduction zone, which has shifted local sea levels at intervals of several centuries.

The park is named for the Tolowa people, whose homeland covered this area and was relatively undisturbed before American colonization in the 1850s. Their oral history preserves accounts of tectonic activity along the Cascadia subduction zone, which has shifted local sea levels at intervals of several centuries. The Pala Road parking lot leads to a short trail across Yontocket Slough to a historic cemetery.

The park is open year-round, but trails can be wet and muddy depending on the season, so sturdy waterproof footwear is a good idea. Several parking areas along Sand Hill Road give direct access to the trails, making it easy to choose a starting point based on where you want to go.

Lake Earl and Lake Tolowa are connected to the Pacific by a narrow channel that opens and closes naturally depending on wave action and rainfall, which means the salinity of the lakes shifts constantly. This ongoing change determines which plants and animals can live there at any given time, making the ecosystem different from one visit to the next.