Prairie Creek

Mileage: 2.9 total

Elevation Gain: 213 ft

NOTE: Although this trail is close to the road, it passes by what is some of the best scenery of the entire Redwood National and State Parks. The area around the Prairie Creek Visitor Center is just awe-inspiring and absolutely magical. Honestly, you can forego the Tall Trees Grove permit and just spend your trip hiking around this visitor center to see the best the park has to offer. On our trip, the Newton B. Drury Scenic Byway was closed due to a downed tree, so this trail was especially beautiful as there was no road noise from the byway and we were able to take some beautiful photos on the road.

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The Prairie Creek Visitor Center provides a lot of great information about the surrounding park, and has an abundance of under-rated trails in its immediate vicinity. Throughout our trip, we found ourselves near the visitor center to enjoy the short trails through magnificent redwood groves, gather water from a spigot at the Elk Prairie Campground, and enjoy a craft beer while watching the fog roll in on the Elk Prairie Meadow.

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Having some time left after hiking Lady Bird Johnson and Trillium Falls earlier in the day, we weren’t done hiking yet and still had some daylight to burn, so we decided to hike from the Elk Prairie Visitor Center to Big Tree. We started down the spur that leads to the James Irvine Trail and made our way toward Big Tree. Immediately as we started the trail, the trees were HUGE and the lush fern landscape surrounding the creek was absolutely gorgeous.

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The trail follows the creek most of the way toward the scenic byway and you can really see how it is such a crucial aspect of the environment, providing the moisture for the lush setting you find it in. The trail was mostly flat and would be fantastic for those who don’t want to hike a long distance, but still want to get a feel for everything that Redwood is about.

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When we made it to the byway, we realized we had a unique opportunity to get some beautiful shots of the redwood lined road without any traffic, so we made sure to take full advantage!

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Once we finished our photoshoot on the empty road, we were soon at the Big Tree. Having already seen so many big trees on the hike (many appeared bigger) we didn’t spend much time admiring the tree, but we did enjoy the famous sign next to it.

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At this point we reached out destination, but this trail is really more about the journey than it is the destination. Eager to see more, we decided to make this a loop and take the Cathedral Trees trail back to Elk Prairie. It was just about 4pm in November, so the light was really beginning to wane, which worked out perfectly for us. As we made our way through Cathedral Trees, we were treated to some beautiful light rays filtering down from the canopy. It led to some of our favorite photos of the trip and we left really impressed by the grove. In our opinion, it was at least as good as some of the more famous groves (Lady Bird Johnson, Tall Trees) and much more accessible.

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The Cathedral Trees section of the trail does have a few more hills than the Prairie Creek side, but it’s well worth the journey. Eventually, after some confusing signage with spurs that would’ve taken us all the way to the south end of the prairie instead of the north end (reference a map so you don’t miss a spur, AllTrails was missing some detail), we made it back to the visitor center.

Although it seems like a basic trail that’s right through the touristy part of Prairie Creek State Park, we highly recommend this trail. If you have limited time in the park, we’d say pick this trail instead of Tall Trees or Lady Bird Johnson.

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