Road Trip to the Tallest Trees on Earth

This can't be real. All right, let's get this puppy warmed up and ready to go. We are officially headed out from very snowy Lake Tahoe here in northern California. Once again, big shout out to Ben and Claire for hosting me the past couple days. It's really nice having a place to crash, do some editing, and also get out on the ski slopes for some awesome skiing. Probably the best skiing I've done this season. But I am very excited to be getting back on the road here and headed back out to the coast of California, the northern coast that is, to visit Redwoods National Forest, which is home to some of the tallest redwood trees in the entire country. And it should be a little bit warmer, drier, and sunnier over there, which will be a nice treat after all this snow and cold. But we've got over seven hours and over 380 miles to go until we get there. So enough talking, let's get to making our way back across the entire state of California. We should have some pretty cool views along the way. Hey, how are you? Pretty good. How's yours? All right, pulled over to get our rear solar panel cleared off so that that thing can do its job. Get our battery bank recharged. Also refilled our windshield wiper fluid because fresh out of that and definitely want it when the roads are wet and salty like this. Topped off the fuel tank and also took the opportunity to make myself a little sando. That being said, we are going to have to hit a grocery store soon because the fridge is just about empty. Dude, northern California is crazy. We're only an hour into our drive and in the past hour we've gone through crazy snowy mountains with like eight feet of snow, super rainy, muddy, gross mountains, and we're now going through lush green mountains with flowers blooming in people's yards. Like what the heck is northern California? This place has so many different climates in one. I guess it's probably the high mountain ranges that concentrate different weather systems, but this is crazy. Very different. If you get like a box of, I don't know, dulce de leche, the kind of average stuff, so like now you're getting like milk and dairy and yogurt and also like all these vegetables. I'm like what the heck, this is great. It's like over a hundred dollars a week. And so yeah, it's been great. The scenery out here is absolutely beautiful. I can't even put it into words. It's 60 degrees and sunny outside, flowers are beginning to bloom, so much green, and these winding roads through the mountains and hills driving over bridges with beautiful rivers running underneath with towering mountains in the background. It's just so gorgeous out here. I can definitely appreciate why my little brother said he loves NorCal so much. Dude, get a load of this road we just pulled onto. Horses grazing over here in a little paddock and look at the view down this road. It is just so lush and green and there are huge mountains at the end of it. Can you imagine living out here? This is just beautiful, beautiful farmland. Alrighty, we've made our way through the middle flat section of northern California. We're pulling off the highway to make a little stop at Trader Joe's, get that fridge filled back up. Things have gotten pretty warm here, 72 degrees, which is crazy. It says it's 80 degrees in the truck here which I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I'm definitely feeling a little warm even in my t-shirt right now. Here's the AC on the truck. Despite fixing it before leaving Boston, it has failed once again, so it's gonna be a little hot, but nothing we can't deal with. Hey, how are you doing today? Everything alright? Yes, good. Alright, we are loaded back up, packed to the brim with some overflow. So it turns out between the time that we left Tahoe and now, there is massive road closure in northern California on the way to the Redwoods, now making our remaining trip over three and a half hours and 175 miles. Does that suck? Yes. Is there anything I can do about it? No. We're just gonna have to keep on going. You might be asking yourself, why are you driving by the Trinity Alps right now and not stopping there? And as gorgeous as it looks and as much as I'd love to go explore it, I'm on a time crunch to make it up to my Uncle Tom's in northern Oregon for a steelhead fishing trip this week, so I'm trying to make the most of the time I've got on the road hitting the Redwoods and the Oregon coast. I'm pretty sure the stuff will still be here for us to come back and visit someday. These views just keep getting crazier and crazier. I mean, look at the sunset coming across the tops of these mountains over this lake. It is just beautiful with those snow-covered mountains over on the left. Oh my gosh, just spectacular. Alrighty, we are officially two hours out from our destination and pulling over here at a local bar and grill because for the past hour or so we have been driving some insane road. I know I said as the sun was setting that we were driving into the Trinity Alps wilderness, but about a half an hour later after that I did begin to get into the Trinity Alps for real. Aside from having zero cell service for the past maybe two hours, I've been driving through probably the gnarliest roads this entire trip. Crazy steep bridge, constant rock slide signs warning about rock on the road or rock falling down off the mountain hitting a truck, and just non-stop switchbacks for close to two hours now. Needless to say, I didn't think it was a great idea to try to set up my camera on the windshield mount and try to film and talk at the same time. So I pulled over here at the very ironically named rock slide bar and grill. Seems to be a local watering hole and as much as going into a bar and grill and getting a bite to eat sounds nice, I think I can probably cook up dinner a little bit quicker than it would be served up inside. I most certainly don't need a drink before getting back onto the crazy road for the next two hours. You know me, I'm a real sucker for these Trader Joe's burritos, so keeping things simple tonight with a little burrito, broccoli, and some carrots and hummus of course. And I have to say it's pretty convenient that they've got this little overhang roof here like I got my own little cabin. Well, I just looked up at the sky for the first time in a while and I saw a shooting star out of the corner of my eye. There's the Big Dipper I think. All right, let's get this show back on the road, shall we? Oh, I just sat here for two minutes and realized I have to press this button for a green light. here at Redwoods and this road has been pretty rough. Let's check it out. There's a sign saying campground full. That's not good. Shoot, it does in fact look pretty full. We're gonna need to figure something out here. I actually just got so lucky, it's insane. After making my way almost three quarters of the way around the circle, the campground loop, and seeing every single spot packed, I thought we were SOL. But by some miracle at midnight right now, two campers, Jeremy from Alaska and Pauline from Connecticut happened to be here just arriving at the same exact time as me. And yeah, Jeremy was kind enough to inch his car up and I was able to squeeze in here, so totally lucked out. That being said, it is midnight and I did just drive like eight hours today, so I'm gonna sign off and check out the beach in the morning and I'll see you guys then. Well, it is somehow now noon. I woke up about two hours ago, a little later than expected at 10 o'clock, and just barely caught Jeremy and Pauline before they headed out for the day. And then I spent a little while chatting with the campground host named Mark, along with a few other folks camping around here. Everyone's super nice and it is just an absolutely gorgeous morning here. Oh man, what an unbelievable spot to have some breakfast. Got an absolute beast up here being noon. This is gonna be breakfast and lunch. I figure we might as well fuel up for the day. But my gosh, I've never had such spectacular views of beautiful Forest Ridge and ocean right next to each other. So cool. Alrighty, we got everything packed up and it is time to get out of here so that whoever's got this reserved can get in here and use it, although it is a little bit later in the day than I would like. I did get some solid intel from Mark and I think we can pack in most of what I was looking to do today. Mark said that it's usually pouring rain here and I believe him because these roads are covered in puddles and potholes and ruts. The rain has done a number on them. Oh, look at that. We got a little creek crossing. Nice. Oh yeah, gotta love a little creek crossing. We got another one here. This place is beautiful. Oh, no way. Wild elk. Look at that. This is so cool. I was not expecting to see any elk today. Super muddy out here. Smells so good though with the ocean. I did see a sign saying to keep a distance, so I'm gonna stay like 50-100 feet away, but look at these guys. That is so cool. I was not expecting to see that today. I'm super excited to be here. This is such a gorgeous spot and I know I said it before, but the mix of forest and ocean right next to each other is just beautiful. All right, that appears to be the end of the road for us here. I wasn't sure if I'd have a use for my Tevas on this road trip, but I'm finally breaking them out for the first time on this trip. They're a little bit tight seeing as I got them when I was probably like 12, but still getting the job done. Might have some gnarly blisters after this, but at least we don't have wet boots. Warning, elk are wild animals. If humans move too close or provoke them, a peaceful scene can quickly become dangerous. Guess we're dealing with some aggressive elk here. We better keep our distance. Don't need to get into any dangerous elk encounters. This is just such a cool setting, hiking into the woods with an ocean view right there. So, so cool. From the sounds of it, there is a lot of bird activity here and according to the Merlin Bird ID app, we got a chestnut-backed chickadee, an American crow, a Pacific wren, and a ruby-crowned kinglet. Pacific wren, I don't know if I got it on the audio there, but such a beautiful call from that bird. According to that placard at the trailhead, we are hiking on trails that were at one point in time Indian trade routes that were then used in the 1850s by miners traveling from Crescent City to Trinidad. And crazy enough, that campsite, Gold Bluffs, that we stayed at last night actually used to be a mini gold rush mining site when miners discovered gold flakes in the sand of the beaches. Wow, how cool is this? Oh yeah, that's pretty chilly. This place is just beautiful. Apparently, this entire canyon was formed by tons of water rushing out to the sea and it just cut right through this rock, probably over hundreds, thousands, I don't know, a lot of years. But pretty crazy to think that this all was formed by water. It's also really crazy that these ferns, some of these ferns hanging onto the walls here, apparently their ancestry dates back over 325 million years ago, which is just crazy to think about. They are some pretty ferns though. Finally, just a tiny bit of sunlight coming through. Feels nice and definitely getting a little chilly, but gonna keep on trekking up the river here, or the canyon rather. We're just about at the end of the trail here, at least the canyon trail that is. But this is really interesting over here. We've got a little, I don't even know what to call this exactly, but the water is cutting away at the rock here. So slowly, this is getting cut away at right here. Also really interesting to see this dirt and stone getting eroded away as well. Looks like the canyon is still growing. Toes are just kind of starting to go numb, so not that bad anymore. The camera is about to die, so I'm gonna make my way back down the canyon to the truck, and I'll see you there. Knowing you leave the windows rolled up with the car in the sun and it gets all warm, feels good on the cold extremities here. Shout out to Claire for the protein power cookies. Oh, must have been a little rock slide last night. Well, that took about an hour to get back from the beach to the main road here. We are just about to pull back onto the 101. Didn't take an hour because of the road necessarily, but I was pulling over taking a bunch of photos because it was really cool in there with this evening light coming through. We're officially back out on the 101. Still don't have cell service yet, so I don't know how far the northern redwoods are, but we're gonna try to get there anyways. Jay's second recommendation, and I believe the same road that Jeremy was talking about this morning that brings you right through Grove of the Titans and Stout Grove, which should have some of the largest redwoods, and it looks like we should still get there with a little daylight left. Based on the looks of the map here and the 15 mile an hour speed limit, this road is gonna get a little crazy. Well, let's get into it. Redwood National State Parks. Oh, baby. We're getting into them now. Oh, no way, dude. The camera is not gonna show you at all how big these are, but holy smoke. Those are some massive trees. That looks like a normal size tree on camera. That one is the width of my truck, if not wider. I gotta hop out and show you this. I should really have shoes on. This is blinding stuff. Look at how big these trees are, dude. Oh, my god. That thing is way wider than my truck. This one is probably close to double the width of my truck. This is insane. This can't be real. Look at that. Just some gargantuan trees, and look at the light coming through here. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. We should keep moving. We haven't even gotten to the Grove of the Titans. If they're gonna be bigger than these ones, then I don't even know what to expect. This looks like Jurassic Park right here. Oh, my gosh. Definitely a pretty sketchy road. Oh, yeah, especially when that happens. Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, my gosh. That was, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty sketchy. Whoa, look at that. I think the trees are getting bigger. This is crazy. I am just at a loss for words right now. All right, we made it here to the Grove of the Titans. These suckers are certainly huge. This one's gotta be 10 feet thick. I mean, I got a six-foot wingspan. I can hardly even cover half of the trunk here. It is just staggering. The scale of these trees is crazy. All right, let's keep her moving. No cell service out here, of course, but I think we should be able to get to Stout Grove and the Smith River, hopefully in the next, like, 10 minutes before the sun goes down. Looks like we've got a pretty substantial bridge crossing here. Oh, baby. Wow. Look at that river down there. It is so blue and pretty. I probably sound insane right now, but I probably look insane with this huge pole out the window, but I'm fired up. Beauty. We made it to Stout Grove. It looks like we can drive right in here. Those are some big boys. Oh, hit the camera on a tree branch. That's nice. What, dude? These trees are pretty. Dude, can you imagine camping out in this place? I don't think that's allowed, but I'm sure there's places in the Redwoods that you can do that. All right, looks like there's just kind of some trails and stuff around here. Let's try to get to the Smith River. I think the sun is just going down, but I think we'll still be able to get some cool views in there. I feel like I just drove through the rainforest. Oh, and look at that. There's the Smith River. Wow. Look at the color of that water. So pretty. Rippon River. I did see on the map, I think we should be able to get to a little beach up this way, so let's keep moving while we still got some daylight. This is just ridiculously pretty. Like, I can't even believe these colors right now. Oh, what do we got here? Pretty cute little covered bridge. It does look like we're actually going to cross the Smith here. Of course, it's really hard to see, but there she is. There she is on that side. Look at that beautiful river, man. And boat lamp. Why not check it out, huh? We made it, baby. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. This is going to be a little rough. Oh, boy. Well, well, well. I didn't think we'd be driving the truck down into a river today, but here we are, and I still just can't get enough of that color. It is so pretty. Well, folks, the taco is quite literally running on empty, and so am I. This was an epic adventure, and I'm so, so glad to have made the trip out here to see the redwoods. I hope you guys had fun, and if you did, please do me a favor and go hit that like button down below, which tells the algorithm that I did something right in this video, and that some other people should see it, too. Thanks again for being part of the adventure. I love you guys, and until next time, keep making the most of it.