Lost! Again! Glints of sunlight streaked the trail and the old-growth trees on either side stood as silent as snow. As I wandered deeper and deeper into the forest along tiny threadlike paths, surrounded by more sorrel than I’d ever seen in my life, I felt as if I was in a fairy tale and that an elf might leap out from behind a tree.
I had no idea which way would lead back to the car, but what a place to get lost. I was deep in the maze-like Greig-French-Bell Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Although the grove is lacking in signs, I wasn’t worried about being lost because I always eventually hear a motor or glimpse light from the Avenue of the Giants. Or I end up next door at the Drury-Chaney Loop, a quarter of a mile north.
Despite its beauty, the Greig-French-Bell Grove gets less foot traffic than the rest of the park because it’s located at the quieter northern end of the Avenue, farther from the Visitor Center and popular tourist areas like Founders’ Grove. The grove’s lack of prominent signage, restrooms and ample parking space make it less convenient and is probably why I rarely encounter other people there. But if you want to immerse yourself in churchlike solitude, this is your place.
The grove is particularly stunning for the hilly mounds of sorrel framing its paths. The abundance of this groundcover is due to the grove’s location in an especially saturated section of the Avenue. The fog moistens and nourishes the tiny sorrel plants as they grow in close bunches to compete for light.
A few years ago, the original loop trail was blocked by a massive debris pile caused by fallen trees and can no longer be fully walked. The Humboldt Redwoods trail crew leaves debris piles to naturally decompose to protect the trees and groundcover. Clearing the fallen trees would require heavy machinery that could damage the root systems of the redwoods and destroy the sorrel, the grove’s unique feature. Even without the original trail, though, there’s plenty to explore, because an extensive web of unofficial, winding narrow paths runs throughout the grove.
And it has another eccentric feature. As you enter the grove, a sign reads, “Access Trail to Thomas A. Greig, Enoch Percy French, Wilfred Brown Bell.” Walk along the trail to the left, where you’ll reach a marker for the start of the loop trail. After about a quarter of a mile, you’ll pass a sign for the Enoch “Percy” French Grove. Soon you’ll come across a grove of redwoods and the bizarre “girdled tree,” the bark of which was stripped and removed for display at an exhibition booth at a San Francisco convention in 1901. Despite the harsh removal, the tree survived and is actively regrowing its bark.
You can sit on a bench nearby and gaze at its bald exposed trunk, pondering the lengths people will go to prove a point. In the case of the girdled tree, its bark was stripped and shipped to San Francisco to showcase the scale of the coastal redwoods to the public. Many people outside California doubted stories or photographs of ancient redwoods, assuming they were a hoax or a tall tale.
One of the men who stripped the bark was a Pacific Lumber surveyor named Enoch French, for whom the grove was named. He later became the superintendent of Humboldt Redwoods park district.
The Greig-French-Bell Grove, which takes less than 30 minutes to walk, is kid-friendly, although dogs or bikes are not permitted. I recommend wandering aimlessly and retracing your steps whenever you reach a dead end. Go ahead and get lost. You may accidentally end up in the Drury-Chaney Loop, which is much more organized and has a well-defined trail — a 2.5-mile loop — that will give you more of a consistent workout if you want. This loop is also beautiful, with vegetation more similar to the rest of the park, but not quite as enchanting as its neighbor.
The Greig-French-Bell Grove is about 40 minutes from Eureka. Take U.S. Highway 101 South for about 34 miles to the Barkdull Road/Pepperwood exit 671, turn left to cross under the highway, and make a left onto the Avenue of the Giants. The grove is about a half mile ahead on your right.
Louisa Rogers (she/her) is a writer, painter and paddleboarder who lives in Eureka and Guanajuato, Mexico.
This article appears in Condors of the North Coast.