Van Damme State Park, California - August 20th to 21st, 2024
After a long travel day and several things going wrong, Van Damme State Park offered a place to decompress. Van Damme was not as spectacular as our previous stay at Gold Bluffs Beach, but we needed a break.
Tuesday was a little rough around the edges, but we took it in stride. It was a longer travel day than we’ve had in a while. According to Google Maps, it was about four and a half hours from Gold Bluffs Beach Campground to Van Damme State Park. We added about half an hour to an hour by taking the Avenue of Giants alternate route along the way.
Before reaching the Avenue of Giants, we stopped in the town of Eureka for groceries and an outdoor store. We don’t normally shop at Walmart, but it was right next door to Sportsman’s Warehouse. We both needed some more hiking socks and the Safeway was on the far side of town away from the highway. The Walmart had groceries, but not fresh fruit and vegetables. We’ve never been to a grocery store without fresh produce. Even small little mom & pop grocery stores in small, remote towns have some produce, even if the selection is rather limited. But this Walmart didn’t have any. Otherwise, it was a large store with just about everything else usually found in a typical grocery store. What’s up with no fresh fruit and vegetables? A staff member told us that other grocery stores in the area have produce, but we didn’t want to take the time to drive across town.
When we tried to enter Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO) with our groceries, the steps would not deploy. It was a big step up to get into our rig without steps. We decided to figure out the issue later, when we got to camp. The outdoor store had the socks we were looking for, but nothing else on our list. We were hoping for clip on sunglasses and a sunglasses strap.
The Avenue of Giants is a little over 30 miles long, from Pepperwood to Philipsville. It is in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, running parallel to highway 101. It is a narrow, two-lane road, winding through the redwood trees. We didn’t see any vehicle size restrictions, but we wouldn’t want to take a large class A or long trailer on the road.
As we made our way down the Avenue of Giants, we stopped at the Dyerville Overlook along the Eel River where the town of Dyerville used to be. It was a place to park for a picnic lunch with restroom facilities. Dyerville was wiped out in 1955 by a flood.
Further along the Avenue of Giants, we passed by Burlington Campground in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, where we camped during Season One (Redwood National and State Parks - July 3 to July 5, 2019). The campground is similar to Mill Creek Campground in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park (Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, California - August 14th to 17th, 2024) in that the camp sites are nestled among large redwood stumps that had been logged. Unlike Mill Creek, there are still living old growth redwood trees standing in the area.
In Leggert we turned off highway 101 and picked up the start of California Highway 1. A posted sign said that RV’s over 40 feet long were prohibited. We don’t know if that is for all of Highway 1, or just the section heading west from Leggert. The road is a lot more winding than US Highway 101. It took us a surprisingly long time to reach the coastline from Leggert. The highway twisted and turned up and over some mountains before reaching the coast.
The views of the ocean from the highway are beautiful. It was getting late in the day, so we only stopped in Fort Bragg, to finish our grocery shopping and fill up on gas. When we reached Van Damme State Park, we dumped our tanks and filled our fresh water up to 90%.
As we tried to find the most level spot in our camp site, the fresh water tank decided to overflow. Once it starts overflowing, it doesn’t seem to want to stop. We’re sure we dumped several gallons of water onto the ground. Our camp site was not even close to level. We were off by 14 inches. As we contemplated what to do, we took a stroll around the campground loop to see if there were any open sites that were more level that we might be able to switch to. There weren’t, but the walk relieved the stress we were feeling from the day. As we were blocking up Red Tail, the camp host drove by. He had extra 2x6’s for campers to borrow for leveling. The boards were nice and long. We took a couple. They must know their sites are not very level and are trying to help. Thank you! Even with the help of the extra boards, our boards, and our GoTreads (unpaid link), our front tires were still about seven inches low. We’ll have to live with that. Thankfully, it’s only for two nights.
While we were setting up camp, parts of the Lagun table fell off. But that was an easy fix that we knew how to do right away. It was just a matter of screwing the parts back onto the arm of the table. They must of jiggled loose over time.
As the sun started to set, Ann got her steps in by walking down to the beach. The beach is on the opposite side of the highway from the campground. The highway was not very busy that time of day, so she didn’t have any problems crossing the road. The beach was not as nice as Gold Bluffs Beach. It is in a little cove, with the cape blocking the setting sun. Not only was there no view of the sunset, the rocky cape was in shadow, so Ann didn’t get much of a view.
While Ann went for her walk, Keith worked on figuring out the issue with the steps. Not only were the steps not deploying, the motor was not even switching on. He opened up the bench seat to try to locate the two fuses and the relay for the steps. Then he cycled the DC power. Voila! The steps magically started working again. Perhaps the relay just got in a weird state and needed to be reset. Problem solved. Yay! The drive on Tuesday was long enough to bring our batteries back up to full charge, at 14.3 V. Overnight, the two batteries were discharging at the same rate and stayed in sync. Another problem solved. Life was good again.
Wednesday we went for a long hike right from the campground. The Fern Canyon Trailhead was just half a mile from our camp site. This Fern Canyon is not to be confused with the Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park that we hiked just two days prior. The Fern Canyon in Van Damme State Park is not as stunning as the one in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, but it is less crowded. You are more likely to have the trail all to yourself.
The first couple of miles followed alongside a creek, crossing it quite a few times over bridges. A couple of the bridges were temporary ones, as they had been damaged during some recent flooding. The lack of people and the sound of the babbling water next to us made the hike very peaceful and relaxing. The trail is smooth and wide, so it is easy to cruise down the trail.
Then the trail splits. The right fork goes up an old road, out of the canyon, and over to the Pygmy Forest parking area. The left fork continues along the canyon for another mile or so before climbing out of the canyon into the Pygmy Forest and joining back with the other fork. Bicycles are allowed on the trail up to the first fork. Then they are prohibited on the left fork, as the trail gets narrower and not as smooth.
We took the left fork and came back the right fork. As we came out of the canyon, the surrounding environment suddenly changed. We were more exposed to the sun, the trees were small and sparse, and the air felt drier. Welcome to the Pygmy Forest.
We followed the trail all the way to the Pygmy Forest parking lot. We were hoping that there would be a picnic table there where we could sit down and eat lunch. But there weren’t any. Instead, Ann sat on the ground and Keith perched on top of a post. It felt good to get the weight off our feet after covering over five miles.
From the parking lot, there is a short boardwalk with interpretative signs explaining the Pygmy Forest. After lunch, we strolled the boardwalk, reading all the signs. The Pygmy Forest is a shelf of old, sandy, poor soil where the plants’ growth is stunted. They are dramatically smaller than their counterparts elsewhere. The dwarfed plants included a couple types of pine trees, madrone, rhododendron, huckleberry, and manzanita. It was very interesting.
By the time we returned to the campground, we had gone almost 10 miles with an elevation gain of 820 feet. It took us about four hours and a half hours to complete. That’s a longer hike than we’ve done it quite a while, probably since the Baker-Milton Trail in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument the year before (Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona - September 21st to 24th, 2023). We were proud of the fast pace we were able to keep on the Fern Canyon Scenic Trail. We counted it as hike 50 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2024.
Although Van Damme State Park didn’t have a lot to offer, we thoroughly enjoyed the long hike in Fern Canyon. We were glad we stayed there for two nights, but we probably would not have wanted to stay there much longer than that.
Check out our related video: Van Damme State Park, California
(Ann)