Avenue of the Giants

Try this with your oversized SUV so we can all
laugh at you!

Avenue of the Giants
Throughout Humboldt County, CA

Three words:  Big.  Ass.  Trees.

Humboldt County is well-known for a variety of recreational activities, but the most impressive of nature’s gifts to this region is the long stretch of old Highway 101 between Fortuna and Garberville.  You can spend days on end exploring over 30 miles of redwoods, camping, hiking and swimming along the way.

The Avenue of the Giants is a tourist’s paradise.  Visitor centers at either end provide free information and maps for you to plan your trip, and roadside souvenir and snack shacks supply you with the necessary fuel for short or long hikes.  The route is peppered with captivating attractions such as the Immortal Tree, nearly 1,000 years old, which has survived a lightning strike and a flood.  You can tour the Tree House, an actual home built into a live redwood.  Several Drive-Through Trees offer double-pronged forms of entertainment: you’ll giggle as your slowly roll your vehicle through a tree, windows down so you can touch the inside of it like thousands before you; then, you can wince in anticipated failure as too-large SUVs realize they are, indeed, too large to complete the task.

If a quiet afternoon is more your style, seek out the Dyerville Giant, a behemoth at over 350 feet tall, and contemplate whether anyone was around to hear it make a sound when it fell in 1991.