Late Summer Redwoods: Hiking at Sam McDonald County Park

Date: August 20, 2024
Place: Sam McDonald County Park, La Honda, California

Coordinates: 37.296606, -122.265540

Length: 6.1 miles

Level: moderate

It is normal for me to hike at a slow pace, unless of course, I am in a hurry. In the last year however, my slow pace resulted also from advanced arthritis in my left hip which caused me great inconvenience and considerable pain. The situation deteriorated to the point that nothing else worked anymore and I scheduled a hip replacement surgery for the end of August. Knowing I'd have a long period of home rest without any hiking I was eager to get one more trail hiked before the surgery. So three days before I was planned to get under the knife I connected with my friend and we met at Sam McDonald County Park for a hike in the redwoods. 

The first thing I saw when I stepped out of the car was a single banana slug that was half hidden under the log marking the edge of the parking area. 

Banana Slug

The visitor center cabin was closed. My friend an I paid the parking fee using the little envelopes they had there, grabbed our packs and started down the path that led to the trail of our choice. 

Our hike as captured by my GPS

 A short path connects the parking lot to the road accessing the park. The trailhead we sought was on the other side of that road. Right by the connecting path grew an old redwood tree that had a through huge fire cavity that ran along most of its trunk length. I just had to look through it. 

The trail we started on was the Towne Fire Road which, as it was named, was a wide dirt road. It was convenient to walk on, but its slope was pretty steep at times. We started hiking uphill right from the trailhead, going at the slow pace that my condition allowed and enjoying a friendly chat and the grand view of the redwood trees.

Towne Fire Road

It didn't take very long before I stopped short and stepped off the trail - I saw an orchid in bloom! I already knew this orchid species - it was not a California native but an introduced species. Still, an orchid is an orchid. Naturally, I spent some time taking its photos from every direction. I later saw many more of these orchids on this hike and my excitement subsided a bit, but I still took more photos. 

Broad-leaved Helleborine, Epipactis helleborine, non-native

Other things that thrill me are pretty spider webs. I see these utilitarian webbings as nature's works of art. In this case, the artist was sitting right in the middle of its creation.  

We saw many spider webs on that hike, most of them of the dome web type, but this one was different - it weaved a tunnel, a hiding place for itself, at the top of its web. 

We came upon a side loop trail named, "Big Tree" and we turned onto it, hoping to see an old growth redwood there. 

Big Tree Loop Trail

There might have been an old growth redwood there indeed but my friend and I were in the midst of a heated debate so it is likely we simple stormed by the tree without noticing it at all. When We came back to Towne Fire Road a bit further up I remembered about the redwoods, and although I didn't turn back, I did photograph the high canopies of the nearby trees. 

Coast Redwood, Sequoia sempervirens

Once again on the wide dirt road that was Towne Fire Road Trail we continued uphill, but the slope was milder now, and even dipped a bit at times. By and by we started seeing other hikers as well. 

Towne Fire Road

A thick redwood forest doesn't let much sunshine through, so the forest undergrowth plants aevolved for high shade tolerance. I was glad seeing them down below the trees. Some of them were even blooming still. 

Foamflower, Tiarella trifoliata

Other forest floor plants were already in their fruit stage. There are a few species of False Lily of the Valley plants on the redwoods of San Mateo County, but based on the fruit and foliage alone I couldn't determine which species was the one that I saw there. 

False Lily of the Valley, Maianthemum sp. 

Towne Fire Road Trail had a lot of trail junctions leading to other side trails and zig-zag turns. At each such intersection we needed to make sure that we were on the right path, going in the right direction. 

Towne Fire Road

As we approached the next curve I saw a covey of quail up the trail and immediately pulled my friend to the side. I pointed them out to her, and commenced taking photos. I took many photos of that covey, as they run on the trail, and I'm embarrassed to admit that none of them turned out very good. I blame that on the distance of the birds, on of course on the forest's treacherous lighting. The quail were very cute and fun to watch, but eventually they vanished in the forest and we resumed our hike. 

California Quail

It didn't take long before we had our next wildlife excitement in the shape of a beautiful young buck that we spotted across the creek from us, walking at ease on that steep mountain slope. The buck noticed our presence and stopped, ;looking at us gravely for a long minute before moving on. 

Black-tailed Deer, buck

We were about to move on as well when we noticed another deer - a young doe that was following the buck. The doe paused in exactly the same place that the buck did, looking at us as well. Eventually she moved on too and my friend and I continued up the trail. 

Black-tailed Deer, doe

We reached the high part of the park. Towne Fire Road was going all the way to the junction with the Heritage Grove Trail which we planned to take back downhill, but when I saw that there was a hikers trail that paralleled the dirt road I pulled my friend to walk on that one instead. 

East Brook Trail

We didn't see many birds on this hike. We heard them - they were in the trees, but they didn't make themselves visible. I was happy therefore, too see a single towhee perched on a low redwood branch right by our trail. Looking closer I was less happy for the poor bird - he looked unhealthy. I hope that he made it through whatever that was. 

California Towhee

Up on this path we got our first sight of an open area - a true forest clearing with savanna like grassy area that was bathed in sunshine. 

Nearing the end of August, the grass was dry and yellow. There were some green plants here and there in the open field, and some of them where blooming still. 

Aster

For a short distance we merged wit the Towne Fire Road again. By then  the debate my friend and I had moved from politics to dentistry. I'm not sure why I remember this particular detail, it must have been painful enough. 

Towne Fire Road

The California coast is one of those regions where some wildflowers can always be seen, year round, even if very few. As the end of summer was drawing near and most plants have gone to seeds already, I was still finding some wildflowers at the driest part of the hike. 

Varried-leaved Collomia, Collomia heterophylla

Not all the wildflowers I saw were native species of California. I don't usually post photos of invasive species in my blog but sometimes their beauty overcomes my resistance. In the case of the thistle in the photo below, it was the lighting that gave it the glow. 

Shrubs and vines can afford themselves a longer bloom season than annual herbaceous plants. I was happy to see some honeysuckle also blooming by the trail. 

Pink Honeysuckle, Lonicera hispidula 

My friend was not as interested as me in all the local flora but she patiently put up with my enthusiasm and with me pointing out and naming out loud all the wildflowers we've seen along the hike. This has never stopped her from joining me on the trails. 

Spanish Lotus, Acmosipon americanus

For a brief distance the view opened up before us and we could look ahead onto the rolling slopes of the peninsula ridge mountains and a lovely endless-seeming conifer forest. 

Although the forest here was primarily of coast redwood, other conifer species were also quite prevalent. One of the more common trees in the surrounding forest was the Doulas fir which can grow almost as tall as the redwood. 

Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii

We reached Heritage Grove Trail junction and start on the trail that would take us down the mountain. We wanted to take a break but didn't want to sit in the sun so we kept going on, hoping that a suitable location would present itself soon.

Heritage Grove Trail

The last dry clearing we crossed provided the nicest wildflower species I've seen on the hike - the California fuchsia. The bush had only a few flowers still open but it was lovely to see. 

California Fuchsia, Epilobium canum

Soon we reentered the forest and started walking downhill. After some distance in which we couldn't find a good place to sit we simply stopped in a place that was a bit more wide and clear and sat down for a short snack and water break. 

Heritage Grove Trail

My friend was pressed on time so we didn't sit for very long. Now we were in the forest once more, but on this side of the slope, there were also oak and laurel trees mixed in with the conifers.. There were also other species of wildflowers blooming along the path. 

Hedgenettle, Stachys ajugoides

It also seemed to be a wetter slope of the mountain, with a deeper canyon and a creek that may have run water until later in the season. There were many more ferns growing on the slopes above and below the trail, and they looked lush and healthy. 

Five-fingers Fern, Adiantum aleuticum

For the most part, the Heritage Grove Trail was a narrow hiker's path. The trail's name inticated the presence of old growth trees but we didn't see any. All the redwoods along the trail were younger growth, sprouted after the big logging that devastated the area in the late 1880s. 

Heritage Grove Trail

We did see plenty of the old growth stumps all along the trail. They were a sad reminder of the devastation that human greed can inflict on nature, often with consequences that directly affect the next generation of resident people. Redwood trees however, are exceptionally resilient, and nearly all the renewed forest are of trees that are clonal to the downed old growth, having sprouted from the same root crown. 

Redwood trees also fall on their own, and we saw plenty of fallen logs forming natural bridges across the creeks we crossed.

Heritage Grove Trail

A large area of the redwood forest floor was covered with redwood sorrel - one of the herbaceous plants that evolved to thrive in the deep shade of the forest. The redwood sorrel, a relative of the sour grass, has very pretty flowers, but I didn't expect to see any so late in the season. To my surprise, we did come upon a small patch that had a couple of open flowers. 

Redwood Sorrel, Oxalis oregana

 Nearby was a snowberry bush, but its beauty was in the snow-white berries. We were hiking there at exactly the right time to see those lovely ghost-like berries. 

Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus

Down and down and down we walked, at a fairly quick pace. Eventually we reached a trail junction with a wider dirt road. It was there that I made a mistake and instead of taking the right turn that would have taken us directly down to the road, I pointed to the left turn and my trusting friend followed me there on a needless extension of more than half a mile, half of it on a steep incline. That steep connector placed us right back on Towne Fire Road a bit higher from the Big Tree Loop. It was only there that I realized the mistake I made. My friend wasn't happy about the time wasted, but the only thing we could do now was to point ourselves downhill and gallop down as fast as we could. 

Towny Fire Road Trail

We reached the road and crossed it to the trail connector, where I did take a moment to photograph again the large redwood with the huge crack cavity in the middle. 

Coast Redwood, Sequoia sempervirens

Three days after this hike I went into the surgery room. I've resumed hiking since, but I have not yet gone back to the redwoods. Sam McDonald County Park has a very nice trail system and some adjacent forest open space to explore. I loved the trail of this hike and I hope to get over there again soon.