NORTH COAST
Picturesque fishing harbors, Victorian villages and the world’s tallest trees
TOP CITIES
Mendocino, Eureka, Crescent City, Fort Bragg, Garberville, Arcata, Ukiah, Cloverdale, Ferndale
GATEWAY
The Arcata-eureka Airport (EKA), 16 miles (26 km) from downtown Eureka, has service from San Francisco and other hubs, but no international flights
TOURISM WEBSITES delnorte.org exploredelnorte.com northcoastca.com visitredwoods.com visitmendocino.com redwoodcoastparks.com
POPULATION 782,000
This should put things in perspective: The North Coast’s tallest building is only 77 feet tall, but its tallest tree stands 379 feet tall. Until you’ve seen one up close, it’s hard to grasp just how neck-craningly high a coastal redwood tree can grow. These 3,000-year-old arboreal titans—nature’s loftiest skyscrapers—grow in only one place in the world: a narrow strip of fog-shrouded mountains along California’s wild and relatively unvisited North Coast.
The Redwood Highway
Old-growth redwoods are preserved in a chain of parks strung along Highway 101, known in these parts as the Redwood Highway. In southern Humboldt County, Humboldt Redwoods State Park straddles the scenic drive known as the Avenue of the Giants. In northern Humboldt and Del Norte counties, a cluster of parks— Redwood National Park (which turned 50 in 2018) and Prairie Creek Redwoods, Del Norte Coast Redwoods and Jedediah Smith Redwoods state parks—form one contiguous redwood reserve.
The sounds of chainsaws and buzzing sawmills that once dominated the North Coast are rapidly fading as the lumber industry winds down. In former mill towns such as Fort Bragg, tourism is replacing timber as innovative galleries, restaurants and brew-pubs spring to life.
Although it’s sometimes called the Redwood Empire, the North Coast is more than just tall trees: It’s also salmonfishing boats bobbing in tiny harbors; Roosevelt elk bugling across misty meadows; steam trains chuffing through a damp and dripping forest; hole-in-thewall restaurants serving fish smoked according to traditional Native American