Virtual Guidebook to the Redwood National and State Parks
Gold Bluffs Beach
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park California

Wild and dramatic, Gold Bluffs Beach stretches most of the length of Prairie Creek State Park. It has its own herd of Roosevelt elk, often easily spotted from the gravel road that comes up the beach from the south. Gold really was mined from the beach sand here, briefly, in the nineteenth century.

Now the reasons to come are for the beach itself, and for Fern Canyon. This is a slot canyon in the coastal bluffs with 60 foot high walls draped in maidenhair and five finger ferns. In summer plank bridges allow you to walk its quarter mile length, but in the off-season you will have to wade.