Day 9 - Giant Redwoods Everywhere (Brandon)

With only 25 miles on the schedule, we slept in a little late today and didn’t get onto the road until 9:30. We were greeted with 800ft of elevation gains. Who needs coffee when you can hit your max heart rate for 40min straight, first thing in the morning? It certainly wakes me up, you guys should all try it. 😜 After climbing back up to the top of the hill we had climbed the night before it was all smooth sailing downhill into Klamath and the “Trees of Mystery.” That was a lot of fun, we saw a ton of redwoods, learned some facts, and bought ourselves ice cream cones when it was done. 

After the “Tree’s of Mystery” it was back on the road with only about 10 miles to our destination, woohoo! We were both famished though, so we started looking for a place to grab a bite. When I saw a sign for an Indian Casino in Klamath, with a restaurant, I was sold! 🤑Unfortunately when we got there it was a ghost town, the casino was locked up along with the restaurant, and the adjoining hotel had nobody at the counter. We locked our bikes up and walked across the road to grab a burger at a dodgy looking bar, that was only doing takeout through a window on the side of it. Everything else in the town appeared locked up as well, we guessed that there must be a sizeable COVID outbreak at this reservation, and they closed up out of caution. The burgers turned out to be huge and quite tasty, even if the surroundings left a little to be desired.

After lunch we still had about 9 miles and 1100ft of elevation to go until campsite for the night. Neither of us were enthused about doing another 1100 ft today, and the hills were very steep, we gained nearly all of that elevation in the first 3 miles… but then, we were into the heart of old growth redwoods... Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park.

There are no pictures I could ever post to do this place justice. It was the best 6 miles of bike riding I’ve ever done in my life. The road was nearly empty, it was downhill enough that it required no pedalling, and the majesty of these ancient giants stole the show. I had a very, very hard time keeping my eyes on the road in front of me. I would do todays ride over and over again just for that 6 mile section. I’m not underselling the magnitude of the beauty this forest has to offer, it should be a top ten bucket list item for everyone. Extra pictures this time for good measure.

Cheers!