[Leica] OT: Pacific Coast Highway

[Bartphotog at aol.com (Bartphotog@aol.com)]

In a message dated 6/28/06 12:23:18 PM, richard-lists@imagecraft.com writes:

<< North of Napa/SF, you want to just pick up I-5, all the way up to 
Seattle. 
The northern costal drive is definitely not as pretty as the Big Sur area. >>

Maybe not as intense as Big Sur, but I'd say don't miss the trip through the 
redwood country on Highway 101 - several gorgeous state parks and the 
multi-unit Redwood National Park.
 
There is a short stretch of Old Highway 1 called the Avenue of the Giants 
that's worth getting off the much faster Highway 101 for.  

One spectacular place is Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park, and particularly 
Gold Bluffs Beach.  Quoting from Foghorn Press's "California Beaches" (which 
I 
highly recommend): "One of the most beautiful beaches on the North Coast 
(and 
therefore, anywhere), Gold Bluffs Beach lies inside the boundaries of Prarie 
Creek Redwoods State Park, which itself is surrounded by Redwood National 
Park. 
... The beach is a vast, desertlike expanse virtually devoid of humanity, 
unchoked by seaweed or litter.  It extends farther than the eye can see in 
either 
direction."  The park also has a Fern Canyon - a narrow river canyon whose 
steep walls rise high above a beautiful little stream, and are covered in 
lush 
green ferns that create a magical cool, green microworld when sunlight 
filters 
down through the ferns!  The park is also home to a herd of Roosevelt Elk, 
which are quite amenable to being photographed, from a respectful distance 
of 
course.

I'm jealous - the only vacation our family ever enjoyed enough to do two 
years in a row waa the drive up the California, Oregon, and (the first year) 
Washington coasts, with forays into the Cascades in Ore and Wash. 

If you do instead head up I-5 after leaving Napa/Sonoma, take the detour 
into 
Lassen Volcanic National Park.  The U-shaped park road, leaving I-5 at Red 
Bluff and returning to it at Redding, provides breathtaking views and 
fascinating, Yellowstone-like (though smaller) thermal features, and a view 
from the top 
of Lassen Peak (a moderately strenuous hike with a 2000 ft elevation gain 
and 
some loose red lava) that encompasses hundred of square miles of the 
Cascades 
and the Central Valley of Calif.  Also, on the volcano theme, consider side 
trips to the spectacularly beautiful Mount Rainier, and the grim (at least 
when 
we were there some 10 years after the eruption) spectacle of destruction 
that 
is Mount Saint Helens.

Enjoy!  You'll wish you had a lot more time to explore!

Bart Smith