Avenue of the Giants: One of California's Best Drives

Avenue of the Giants is a scenic highway in Northern California that runs along highway 101 and goes through some of the state's best redwood groves I've been here many times in the area always blows me away so on a recent trip I decided to spend an entire day making this video here are some of my favorite spots and Avenue the Giants and let me know what I left off in the comments we started the day in Santa Rosa and drove two and a half hours north to the town of Garberville for lunch at Wood Rose cafe after lunch we hopped back in the car drove a few more exits and started our time on Avenue of the Giants right when you get off the freeway don't forget to stop and pick up an auto to our map 32 miles of Redwood exploring is about to happen the first few miles of the highway starts slow with not a lot of tree cover but pretty quickly you'll be surrounded by some massive trees we just passed a small town where there's some food and we're entering into the best part of the Avenue of the Giants now the road through heavenly the Giants is one that you definitely want to take your time on as it goes through some of the best hikes and groves in humble redwood State Park we're in Boiling Grove which is the first redwood grove that was saved by the save a redwood league and it's our first stop and I haven't heard of the Giants bowling grove is a great first stop in the area as it has a good collection of trees and the grove was named for a US officer that was killed in World War one you can see how small amy is and how big the trees are redwoods so tall on to the next growth if you're looking for an easy place to stay this is the campground it is closed for the season our next stop brought us to the town of Meyers flat which has one of the most popular attractions in the area which is a drive thru tree this is one of three drive through trees in the Northern California area but it's the only one that's an Avenue of the Giants it costs $10 to enter and note that this is a pretty small tree to drive through a mccann almost touch of both sides Oh unfortunately this one is a little bit small for our rental car we watched a motorcycle and another car go through very slowly at least we can go through this one they do have some other fun things you can explore like a tree you can walk through the shine Cathedral tree and a tree you can drive on top of you drove upon a log from there was back into the car and onto our next stop Williams Grove this is the Williams Grove it's a good day use area with picnic benches it does have an eight dollar fee though Williams Grove is one of the only areas on the drive that you do have to pay to access but if you have a large group it's well worth it as there's lots of parking which is not common in the other groves plus there's a lot of picnic benches that you can relax at and a nice Grove that you can walk through we continue to our drive and pulled out at the visitor center [Music] our next stop is at the visitor center it's a great place to pick up a map or ask any questions that you have about the area the founding of Oxford University and the Boston Tea Party the Visitor Center is about the halfway point on the Avenue of the Giants Drive and it has a lot of interesting exhibits that you're going to want to see by far the most interesting is Charles Kellogg's travel log which is a hollowed-out redwood that he put on top of a truck body and that he drove around in the 1920s it's still on display in the visitor center for you to check out [Music] so this area has had some pretty crazy flooding and this sign shows how high the water level was during the flood in the 1960s and there's no water here now it's a terrifying thought I'm only showing you a few of the groves but there's dozens an Avenue of the Giants and you can pull out whenever you want to see all the different groves they have this was just a random Grove that we chose to pull out at and it just shows how much there is to explore along this Drive that we didn't even get to see our next stop is founders Grove we're taking the half-mile trail and this is one of my favorite places in all of Avenue of the Giants on my first drive through Avenue of the Giants founders Grove is what made me fall in love with the area this half mile trail takes you to one of the most beautiful groves in all of California this tree is 346 feet tall there's Amy who's five three and it goes all the way up founders tree is dedicated to the founders of the Save the Redwoods League who have purchased and protected over two hundred thousand acres of trees and are the main reason why this area looks as beautiful as it does today I'll leave a link to them down in the description if you want to check them out place is awesome watch for signs so that you stay on the correct trail we're going that way one of the main points of interest is the dire ville giant which was once the tallest tree in the park at 362 feet before it fell in 1991 you can still see the tree splinters and walk alongside it today check out how this tree fell and it just exploded but shattered and it came even down here as well next to this gigantic stump even though this is only a half mile this is definitely one of those areas you're gonna want to plan some time as it's just such an amazing Grove to see look at how gnarled this tree is Amy said that the trees get burles when they go through stress so that tree has had a lot of stress in its life alright we have one more major stop left in Avenue of the Giants from founders Grove we took the 15-minute drive off the scenic highway to the big trees area of the park we've made it to one of the best spots in the Avenue of the Giants just cross this little bridge and go to giant tree and Flatiron tree the big trees area is much less visited since it's off the main road so it feels more remote and we even saw some deer while we were there last time I was here this seasonal footage was not here they take it out in the winter and it is a very cold walk across when there's no footbridge heading to Flatiron tree first then giant tree the Flatiron tree fell over decades ago but it was notable for how wide it was this is giant tree has a circumference of 53 feet and it was recognized as the champion coastal redwood whatever that means apparently at one point in time this was the biggest coastal redwood but I guess bigger ones have been found now I don't know it was pretty massive to me and definitely the biggest tree I saw all day Ami's air hugging the tree at five three and as a pretty big tree on the way out of Avenue of the Giants we made a few more quick stops the first of which was at Dyer ville which used to be a stagecoach stop and a shipping port but there's nothing remaining from the town now next up we stopped at eternal treehouse which is a 20 foot room that was carved out of the stump of what is supposedly a living redwood tree this is one of our last stops it's a carved out base of a tree known as the eternal tree house our true last stop of the day was at immortal tree this is the immortal tree it survived the acts of the loggers and then it survived the flood of the 60s and then it got hit by lightning on the top just keeps going that's the end of our time in Avenue of the Giants hopefully you enjoyed exploring with us this is one of the coolest places in Northern California get up here and check it out you can go to California through my lens comm for more information and we'll see you on the next video

Channel: California Through My Lens

Views: 196,673

Keywords: avenue of the giants, avenue of the giants (road), humboldt redwoods state park, california (us state), redwood trees, state park, drive through, myers flat, humboldt county (us county), founders grove, giant trees, northern california, redwood forest, avenue of the giants humboldt redwoods state park california, avenue of the giants california, california redwoods, avenue of the giants northern california

Id: 30t_EsuGG60

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 16 2019