Redwood Hikes

Old growth trails
of the California coast

Redwood National & State Parks

★★★

The Berry Glen Trail

with the Lady Bird Johnson Grove


Length 7.2 mi · Climbing 1270 ft
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The Berry Glen Trail

The Berry Glen Trail

The Berry Glen Trail climbs through a remnant strip of old-growth redwood forest to the popular Lady Bird Johnson Grove. It’s very scenic and interesting; the bright, open redwood grove has lots of variation in the colors of the trees and the overall appearance of the forest. Although it’s an upland hike, it has a few clusters of good-sized redwoods. And since it’s on a west-facing slope near the ocean, it gets a lot of summertime fog. The dense woods block any views, though.

The trail is little-used for how scenic and conveniently-located it is; on a nice weekend there may be a group of hikers every 30–60 minutes. The Lady Bird Johnson Grove is much more popular, with a group every 2–3 minutes.

The trail opened in October 2010 and is one of the newest in the park. It’s much wider and smoother than the older trails of nearby Prairie Creek.

The Berry Glen Trail Redwood National Park 0 ½ Miles Scale 1:25,000 Elevation profile Clockwise from Elk Meadow Show location

Click map to show all roads and trails
Part of the Redwood National & State Parks trail map from Redwood Hikes Press (sixth edition, 2023)

Elevation profile Clockwise from Elk Meadow

Hike description

Here’s the trailhead location in Google Maps and Google Street View.

Park in the Elk Meadow Day Use Area on Davison Road; it’s marked with a sign that says “Elk Meadow / Gold Bluffs Beach / Fern Canyon”. In winter, Davison Road may be flooded with a few inches of water, making it tempting to park in a nearby pullout on the side of Highway 101, but the pullout and the red house next to it are private property.

From the Elk Meadow Day Use Area, walk downhill toward the meadow on one of the paved trails. Turn right onto a paved road that soon becomes dirt. It leaves the meadow behind and passes under an attractive steamside stand of red alder trees that lean out over the road. Cross a large wooden footbridge over Prairie Creek.

Cross Highway 101. On the other side, continue for just a few yards before turning right onto another old road, clearly marked as the Berry Glen Trail. It passes under a small stand of alders. Look for a trail that breaks off to the left and begins to climb the hillside. As it climbs, the whoosh of cars on Highway 101 below can be heard.

The trail climbs through a mixed-species forest of redwoods interspersed with tanoaks and other kinds of trees. It’s dark and lush but mundane; with a few exceptions, the redwoods are mostly small. The trail switchbacks steeply up the hill, soon entering a disheveled-looking logged area that’s dense with huckleberry. The old growth then resumes for a while. As the trail climbs along a ridge, there’s old-growth to the right and an old clearcut filled with small trees to the left.

The Berry Glen Trail

The Berry Glen Trail

As the trail leaves the ridge to descend slightly into a wide, shallow hollow, the mixed woods abruptly give way to a much more attractive pure redwood grove with clusters of pretty impressive trees. In fact, the entire second half of the climb is a lot more scenic than the first half. The traffic noise also gets a lot quieter, and sometimes the sound of the distant surf can be heard instead. There’s a groundcover of huckleberry and 6 foot tall ferns.

The Berry Glen Trail

The Berry Glen Trail

There’s an interesting, very open grove of small and unusually light-colored redwoods, then the bigger, darker redwoods resume. The trail also passes a few small openings in the woods that look like meadows but with ferns instead of grass.

The last third of a mile of trail follows an old alignment of Bald Hills Road. Although the original roadbed has disappeared, the large gap that it cut through the forest isolates the trail from the woods, making it a little less interesting and more predictable. There are still a lot of big trees, though.

The trail reaches the Lady Bird Johnson Grove just a few yards below the dedication plaque. The grove is bright, open, and relatively level, but the trees are mostly smaller and the scenery isn’t as interesting as the Berry Glen Trail.

Walk the loop through the grove and then return on the Berry Glen Trail.

The Berry Glen Trail

The Berry Glen Trail

 


 

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