3/19/14 The same time of year as last year's Double Dipsea run, but this time I headed down to Big Basin Redwoods State Park to run the Berry Creek Falls Loop trail. 10.5 miles and almost 2,200' of gain on beautiful single track winding through massive trees and some great waterfalls.
1 I made the long, beautiful drive down the narrow, winding road to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the oldest State Park in California. The rather spontaneous plan was to run the Berry Creek Falls loop clockwise starting on the Skyline to the Sea trail.
2 There are huge Redwoods all along the trail. It's really tough to get good pictures of one of these trees all at once. Some of them are as high as 300' tall.
3 Another picture of the same tree. It woulld probably take four pictures to cover the entire tree.
4 Lots of interesting split trees and hollowed out trunks. Evidently, the bark is so thick (up to a foot) that it survives fires no problem, but the trees can actually burn from the inside out. The trees in this area are 1,000-2,000 years old, so they have probably seen a lot of fires!
5 Great single track winding through the Redwoods.
6 Gives a new meaning to running through the trees! This is some serious trail maintenance. The opening here is easily tall enough to walk through wiithout ducking.
7 The Skyline to the Sea trali runs down to the bottom of the valley and follows Kelly Creek for a while.
8 Some great creek scenery.
9 Beautiful terrain.
10 An amazing grouping of Redwoods all grown together.
11 Looking up the trees.
12 Single track along the creek. It's just a litlte too well groomed to be truly epic trail, but the landscape is tough to beat.
13 Crossing the creek and heading towards Berry Creek Falls.
14 Under and through the Redwoods.
15 The first view of Berry Creek Falls through the trees.
16 Now on the Berry Creek Falls trail on a tree bridge crossing the creek.
17 Berry Creek Falls. One of the nicer falls I've seen in a while. At 70 feet tall, it's not huge, but it's perfectly picturesque, complete with rainbow.
18 A slightly different angle. Berry Creek Falls is spring fed, so there's still decent water flow even in a record dry year.
19 Video of the falls.
20 The trail heads up the side of the falls.
21 Huge Redwoods at the falls.
22 Top of the falls. The perfect 90 degree dropoff makes it easy to get really close to the edge.
23 Hanging right over the edge. About as close as I want to get. There are no rails here.
24 Looking down at the waterfall viewing platform where the earlier falls pictures were taken. From here you can really appreciate just how tall these trees are. At the top of the 70' falls, I'm still only about 1/4 of the way up the height of the trees!
25 More great single track along Berry Creek above the falls.
26 Approaching Silver Falls.
27 Some cool trail steps climbing up alongside the falls.
28 Silver Falls. Definitely low flow compared to pictures I've seen, but beautiful nonetheless.
29 Steep, narrow steps leading right to the top of the falls.
30 Hanging over the railing at the top of Silver Falls.
31 West Berry Creek ready to head over the falls.
32 Video of the creek heading over the edge.
33 The cascades below Golden Falls.
34 Golden Falls. Almost dry, but still very cool. It looks like some sort of modern art fountain.
35 There was a small group of hikers at the falls, which meant a rare picture of me on the trail.
36 Top of Golden Falls.
37 After Golden Falls, the trail forks onto the Sunset trail for the backside of the loop returning to the trailhead. The trail climbs above the forest for a while. It's a little less interesting for a few miles, but still great single track.
38 Back into the Redwoods. Here's one I particularly liked with a spiral growth pattern.
39 Narrow single track right through the Redwoods.
40 Well groomed single track alongside some huge Redwoods.
41 I just can't stop taking pictures of of the interesting siamese trees.
42 A grove of some particularly tall Redwoods.
43 Made it back to the trailhead. The sign matches my watch pretty close. I had measured just a tad less mileage but a bit more gain.
44 Back at park headquarters, I took a quick tourist detour to do the Redwood Loop Trail. This short loop has some of the biggest trees in the park. Here's a particularly gnarly tree.
45 A hallowed out tree that looks like it's on stilts.
46 An attempt with video to capture the size and height of some of these big trees.
47 Father of the Forest. One of the largest trees in Big Basic based on volume.
48 Without a reference, it's tough to appreciate just how big this tree is.
49 Mother of the Forest. One of the very tallest trees in Big Basin at 329'. And with that, the end of another great trail run in the middle of a business trip.