The hook
A creek runs down a canyon whose walls stand fifty feet high and solid green with ferns, some from plant families older than the dinosaurs.
01Why it's worth it
Fern Canyon is a narrow slot in Prairie Creek Redwoods where the walls rise as high as fifty feet and are covered top to bottom in ferns: five-finger, deer, lady, sword, chain, seven kinds in all, and a few of those lineages trace back more than 300 million years. Home Creek runs down the middle, so you walk the canyon floor itself, rock-hopping and crossing plank bridges the park lays down for summer. The green is total and the light comes down soft and filtered. This is the north-coast redwood experience the Avenue of the Giants doesn't give you: water and enclosure instead of the big-trunk drive-through. Steven Spielberg shot The Lost World: Jurassic Park here in 1996, and the prehistoric feel is exactly the reason. Getting in, you cross Gold Bluffs Beach and the meadows where Prairie Creek's Roosevelt elk graze, often a few yards off the road.
02How to experience it
The way in is Davison Road off US-101 north of Orick, an unpaved road with a creek ford that isn't for low cars or trailers. From mid-May to mid-September you need a day-use permit, reserved ahead, and the place fills; outside that window it's free and quiet. The canyon loop runs about a mile and your feet will get wet, so wear shoes you don't mind soaking. Give it a couple of hours to add the beach and the elk prairie, and check the tide and road conditions before you commit to the drive.