Distance: 18  mi. out and back
Elevation gain:1322 ft

This is the only ride in Bestrides that’s mostly dirt.

Once upon a time there was a sweet little dirt road that wound through the backcountry redwoods of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. It was a chance to get up close and personal with the big trees without the hordes of people jammed into the campgrounds and the famous groves.

Then a terrible thing happened: the State Park decided to promote the hell out of the road. So now there’s a large billboard along the highway encouraging cars to drive it, the local visitor’s center has a large sign advertising its virtues, and the guides at the visitor’s center tell everyone who comes in that they should drive it.

So now in the summer it’s a zoo. Constant traffic in both directions. Cars bumper to bumper. When I did this ride, I saw perhaps 300 cars on the road in 18 miles. I counted 47 cars parked at one of the trailheads. I spent almost the entire ride inhaling the dust of passing cars. The trees and bushes were blanketed with dust.

BUT if you can ride it when the traffic is gone, it’s a unique and splendid experience—the closest you can get to the redwoods on a bike. Just check out the photos in this post. Certainly the second-best redwoods ride in Bestrides, after the Avenue of the Giants. To escape the traffic, all you need to do is: 1) wait until tourist season is over; 2) ride on a weekday (I rode on a beautiful Sunday midday in August—worst possible time); and 3) wait until the region has gotten at least one good soaking rainstorm, to wash the dust from the flora. Obviously you don’t want to ride a dirt road right after a lot of rain, but the road is rock, so a little wet won’t hurt the riding at all.

There are stout gates at both ends of the road which look like at some time they would be closed. I don’t know when that would be (or why), but if you’re planning on a winter ride, check to make sure the road is open.

The ride is basically flat, with a noticeable mile of up and a mile of down at the west end (the “hill” in Howland Hill Rd.). The ride is easy, and the dirt surface is in good shape, but it’s still a rocky road, so a gravel bike is essential. I think the road surface improves as you go west, but I may have just been getting used to it. You can avoid a lot of the road chatter if you ride on the extreme shoulder, but redwood country is poison oak country and you may be getting into it by doing so.

You can start at either end. In theory you could loop it, but it would involve a lot of riding on Hwy 199, where you’re really not welcome.

Park at the intersection of Hwy 199 and South Fork Rd. There’s a large parking lot there (and the large sign advertising Howland Hill Rd.). Ride SFR (briefly) to Douglas Park Dr., which soon turns into Howland Hill Rd. and becomes dirt. Ride HHR to the summit, where it turns back into pavement. You get a very nice mile of descending down to the flats of the Crescent City outskirts, At the intersection of HHR and Bertsch St. you can see ahead of you that HHR goes straight and flat, so turn around and ride back to your car. The paved mile of climbing back to the dirt (some 9-11%) will be the only real work you do on the ride.

I am now going to tell you to do something that will convince you I’m bats if this post hasn’t done that already. Throw your bike in your car and drive the couple of miles westward to the Hiouchi Visitor Center and park. Get on your bike and go ride all the roads of the Jedidiah Smith Campground across the street. It’s about 2 miles total. It’s wonderful—a fairy land of paved paths through pristine forest and almost no traffic. It’s a perfect cool-down.

Shortening the ride: You could turn around at the Howland Hill summit, but you’d be missing a swell little descent.

Adding miles: I don’t see any good riding nearby. At the turn-around you can keep going and ride into Crescent City. It isn’t great riding, but riding out of the redwoods through a back door into a city has a certain mystique, and Crescent City is a nice, rough-and-tumble working-class coastal town.