Day 13: Avenue of the Giants & Tall Trees Grove

It seems we're back into our 8:30am departure mode again. We started out driving north on the Avenue of the Giants, stopping at one of the visitor's centers before hiking the Founder's Grove trail with the Founder's Tree and Dyerville Giant (370-foot tall tree that fell in 1991). After that we continued heading north and dropped Dude off to do the Five Allens Trail while the rest of us did the quick Big Tree loop in the Rockefeller Forest. Then we went back to pick up the Dude and finished driving north on the Avenue of the Giants.

We finished that drive early enough in the day that we decided to go ahead and drive up to the Redwood National Park to hike the Tall Trees Grove instead of waiting for tomorrow. It's an almost 4 mile hike that starts with 1.5 miles of steep downhill, then a 1 mile loop around to see some old growth redwoods including the Libbey Tree (former champ that has been surpassed by trees only in the last few years), and then back up the 1.5 miles - 800 ft elevation gain in 1.5 miles is steep, but we were awesome with the girls in our packs. Now we're in our hotel in Arcata where the girls are swimming with Dude and I'm trying to get some laundry done since we all got really dirty and sweaty today. After we get the girls settled into bed, we'll figure out what trails we'll attempt tomorrow as we make our way further up the 101.Day 13 Photos - now with details!