The hook
The first California park to get its name back: Sue-meg, as the Yurok have always called this headland, with a living village site and a beach where people hunt agates.
01Why it's worth it
For a century this 640-acre headland north of Trinidad was Patrick's Point State Park, named for a settler accused of murdering Yurok people. In 2021, at the Yurok Tribe's request, the state renamed it Sue-meg — the name the Yurok have used for the place since long before the park — making it the first park renamed under the state's reckoning with its history. The Yurok connection isn't just the name: Sumêg, a village of traditional redwood-plank houses built with the tribe in 1990, stands in the park and is still used for ceremony. The land itself earns the visit — Wedding Rock jutting into the surf, bluff trails through spruce, tidepools, and Agate Beach below a long staircase, where patient people comb the gravel for the semi-precious stones that wash in. Whales pass close off the points in spring and fall.
02How to experience it
The park is just north of Trinidad off 101, with a day-use fee and three campgrounds if you're staying. Walk the Rim Trail for the headlands and Wedding Rock, visit Sumêg village respectfully, and take the stairs down to Agate Beach at low tide, when the pools and the agate gravel are exposed. It slots naturally between Trinidad and Fern Canyon on a Humboldt coast day.