Walk your world: Faded Highway

The old Redwood Highway stretches into the misty forest near where the Coastal Trail intersects Damnation Creek Trail. Richard Wiens/The Daily Triplicate

Damnation Creek Trail is well-named, because if you give in to the temptation to follow it all the way down to the beach, you’re staring at 1,000 feet of uphill on the return trip. Again, this prescribed journey along the highway of yesteryear is designed to avoid such travail, so it won’t follow this trail for long

Speaking of yesteryear, the very first stretch of this path follows the old county wagon road built in the 1890s. Horse-drawn stages could make the trip from Crescent City to Requa in a mere “ten to sixteen hours, dependent upon the weather,” according to a 1934 state highway department document. Parts of the road were surfaced with wooden planks — imagine the bumpy ride on those stagecoaches — but there really was no evidence of the wagon road along this brief section.

The highway’s white center line can still be spotted, even in mostly overgrown areas. Richard Wiens/The Daily Triplicate

We came upon the intersection with the Coastal Trail just over half a mile from the trailhead, sparing us for this day from the plunge to the beach on Damnation Creek Trail. Turning right, it was immediately apparent we were no longer on a path originally designed for hiking. It was wide and level, and patches of old pavement showed through the forest debris. It wasn’t long before we started seeing traces of the old highway’s solid white center line, and after that a few blocky milepost signs along the side.

Hiking trails that follow old roads are generally less satisfying than narrow, meandering pathways made only for walking and perhaps mountain biking. The trees and foliage aren’t quite as intimate, and the footing is so predictable. But this place was entrancing, evoking images of the jalopies of the ’20s and ’30s rounding the bends, their occupants perhaps seeing the redwoods for the first time as they drove north from the Bay Area or south from Oregon.

The road itself took on many manifestations: at times we could see the full width of the old pavement, then it faded to two wheel tracks with a grassy line in the middle, then to a single track in the grass, and finally to what just seemed to be an overly wide, unusually leveled-out hiking trail.

Evidence of just how hard it must have been to keep traffic flowing was rampant. The trail was frequently squeezed by the residue of long-ago slides. There were a few fallen trees to climb over. And about two and a half miles in, the original roadway was washed out where it crossed Damnation Creek. Fortunately, a walking bridge had been constructed nearby, allowing us to continue as what had been a northerly route veered west.

Hunger kicked in as we passed a stately row of redwoods. The foliage was thick on either side, so we partook of a standing-room-only lunch. Soon the old road would reach the ocean bluffs, where the redwoods meet the sea, just like all those long-ago travelers were promised in the ads for the wondrous new highway ...

Crescent City appears in the distance from a stretch of the Coastal Trail. Richard Wiens/The Daily Triplicate

Do as I say, not as I did.

So we’ll continue from here. The route meandered west and we began catching glimpses of the blue sea. When it hit the bluffs and turned north, we were on a stretch of quintessential Coastal Trail, redwoods to our right, the Pacific to our left, complete with occasional views of Crescent City. Amidst the foliage, eagle-eye Laura spotted an ancient plaque dedicating a redwood grove to World War I veteran Alfred Anson.

Clearly we were still on the old highway at that point. Just where the Coastal Trail leaves it remains a mystery to us. We know the road-builders of nearly a century ago were hell-bent on following the bluffs, and that the route had more than its share of maintenance problems (as in sections falling into the ocean). By the time we began a moderately challenging climb that lasted a half-mile or so, I’m pretty sure we were just on a hiking trail. We could no longer sense the ghosts of early automobiles.

There were other oddities, however. Vast patches of clover stretched out on either side of the trail. On the sunnier side, the clover leaves were all closed up, apparently to ward off the heat. On the shadier side, the leaves spread out in the traditional clover presentation.

Near the summit, we couldn’t resist reaching out to a particularly reddish redwood. Touching its bark was like pushing your fingers into soft cork that would crumble if you weren’t careful.

The final descent toward Nickel Creek and Enderts Beach was long and steep, a real knee-strainer. But if you set out from Enderts heading south, you’d be climbing about 1,000 feet in maybe half a mile. That’s what you can avoid with the recommended two-car approach.

Past Nickel Creek and the turnoff to the beach path, we rejoined the old highway on the stretch of bluffs familiar to anyone who has walked south from the Enderts Beach parking lot. In fact, every time you drive on Enderts Beach Road you’re following the original Redwood Highway, because this is the path it took away from the bluffs and into Crescent City.   

With its motels and auto parks, the thriving timber town and fishing port must have been a welcome sight to motorists emerging from the precarious wilderness.