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Late last fall we received a request for photos of Fern Canyon. Fern Canyon is located 50 miles north of Eureka,CA in Prairie Creek Redwood State Park. This is the subject of our photo of the month.
Fern Canyon lives up to it's name. Home Creek flows out of the Redwood forest and empties into the Pacific Ocean. Over thousands of years this creek has carved out a narrow canyon with depths that range from 50 to 80 feet. The walls of the canyon are covered in ferns from the creek bed to the top of the walls.
 When we were there several places had a steady stream of water falling into the canyon making the ferns glisten in the filtered sunlight breaking through the Redwood trees above. This light is perfect to bring out the greens of the ferns, the moss on the fallen logs and the many different colors of the rocks in the creek bed. As you can see in these photos this is a very watery place so if you go to Fern Canyon remember to take you water proof shoes and plan on getting wet.
Does the above photo remind you of something? The fallen tree truck is where the small dinosaurs waited to ambush the unfortunate lone explorer in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. Clearly this is a timeless place.
As you follow the trail it leads up and out of the canyon and loops back to the beach through the Redwood forest. Along the way we spotted some very interesting mushrooms.
I am not sure but I think this is mother natures way of saying "Don't eat me!"
If you are lucky, as we were, you can get a spot in the nearby Gold Bluff campground, and camp on the beach. This one of the few places where this is possible in California.
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