Our family came to visit us from Illinois. During their visit we drove down to Northern California to camp in the redwoods. The Damnation Creek Trail was recommended by the Park Ranger at our campsite. It is a longer, more strenuous hike, that leads to a rocky beach. We were promised that this beach was a good place to find starfish, which is exactly what the kiddos were hoping for!
The trail started off easy and wide. Our niece and nephew had a blast running around the trail, climbing inside of hollowed out redwood trees.
After some distance the trail hit a fork. At first we followed a trail that we noticed was slightly paved. However this did not seem to be the right trail. We backtracked to the fork and soon found the other trail that we should have continued following. There was a sign a little further down the second option that confirmed we were still hiking on Damnation Creek Trail.
A little ways after the sign the trail became narrower. We also could tell that we were getting close to the coast because sometimes you could see the ocean between tree branches. It also became a little misty and we were drizzled with some raindrops.
Closer to the beach we crossed a very interesting bridge. It wasn’t too far after that we came across another bridge that lead us to a cliff over-viewing the beach.
At the cliff we had to walk down the edge of to the rocky coast. A little stream came out from the redwoods as we descended to the beach. We had brought our LifeStraw with us in our backpack. Casey and our nephew drank from the stream with the LifeStraw.
It was fun exploring the beach with our family. We searched many of the tide pools in hopes of finding a starfish. We found many other types of sea life instead.
It took some time, but Casey eventually found two starfish. One purple and one orange. We had to help lift the kids over rocks to go out far enough to see them.
After the excitement of finding the starfish we decided to snack and rest before heading back. We also took some fun pictures to remember our trip!
For the hike back we mostly had to piggy-back the kids. Surprisingly we made it back to the van faster than our hike to the coast. Probably due to the fact that we did not stop to play since the kids were exhausted. Overall a great day and we had so much fun!
Photo Credit: Carissa Lee Morin-Noblet (2015)
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