Redwood National Park

“Pepper,” I warn as I hike in the lead on the trail. That someone dropped a bright, yellow-green banana pepper from their lunch is the only explanation for the pepper as it’s a tropical fruit and we’re in Redwood National Park, which lies along the northern California coast.

Our tramp along the easy Ah Pah trail reminds me of the walk we took late yesterday afternoon just as we entered the park from Oregon.

“It’s a slug,” says Mark, who’s following behind. He aims the camera at it, and I notice another slug up the trail. Mark scoops the second slug onto a dry leaf and carries him back to be in the picture with the first one.

We watch them a few seconds, struggling in opposite directions. Mark says, “Those two probably spent all day yesterday trying to get away from each other.”

Redwood National Park is not short on trails, but we decide to stick with trails to the west, towards the coast, as the inland trails all seem similar—very easy through forests of redwoods. We choose to follow the Ossagon Trail because it leads through four separate ecosystems: forest, prairie, dune, and ocean.


On the early, more inland sections of the trail, each step gives a little as we’re walking on a bed of dried pine needles. Further in on the cushy, level land, we see clovers as big as the palm of a hand.

Yesterday afternoon we stopped at the Visitor Center and saw the intro tape that informed us that the pinecone from a redwood, the tallest tree in the world, is the size of an olive. They are not littering the trail as we had imagined, but Mark finds one, and we laugh at its tiny-ness.

Further along the easy trail, I spot a red frog. He shyly hops into the big clover, which easily hides him. Then I see another one! And Mark spies a newt! He blends in so well with the sticks.
After three quarters of a mile, the trail drops steeply for nearly another mile before leveling out to prairie on the way to the coast.

Just before the trail opens up to the beach, we pass some wild blackberry bushes and see a heron or some other long-necked bird perched high in a dead tree.

We walk out to the upper beach, and I sit to empty sand from my shoe. Mark hikes onto the crest of the dune, before it slopes off to the ocean. We didn’t see a person the whole hike down, yet two fishermen stand at the shoreline tossing their lines into the sea. Their truck is parked on the beach.


Fog obstructs our view out to sea. Disappointed, we turn back after a short rest. At the berry patch we select the plumpest blackberries within easy reach. Mark laments that we don’t have a bucket. As he picks berries from the bush, he sees a bright green, little frog that seems less shy than the red ones I saw in the forest. He simply sits as we reach all around picking the plump fruit.

On the way back, we pass a young man on a mountain bike, maneuvering down the steep trail that we are climbing. Near the trail head, on the almost bouncy forest floor, we tell a couple about the blackberries near the end, apologizing that we’d eaten those within easy reach.




We stay in the park until early afternoon, sticking with easy hikes since we're worn out from the climb up Ossagon Trail. At Elk Meadow we picnic and hike to a waterfall before returning to Oregon. Redwood National Park is one of my favorites.













Elizabeth (Libbi) Evans Fryer is a nationally published writer who specializes in heath & fitness, travel and business writing. Her first book, My Lost Summer, about her recovery from a coma when she was a teen, is available at www.lulu.com and at Lake Jewelry.