If you get out of the car once on the Avenue, make it here. The Founders Grove nature trail is a short, flat, easy loop through some of the biggest trees in the park, and it gives you what no car window can: the silence, the green light coming down through three hundred feet of canopy, and the scale of a trunk when there’s nothing between you and it.
The grove is named for the founders of the Save-the-Redwoods League, the people who started buying these flats out from under the saws in 1918. The Founders Tree itself stands roughly 340 feet tall, and lying across the forest floor nearby is the most astonishing sight in the park: the fallen Dyerville Giant.
Founders Grove sits on the river flats of the South Fork of the Eel, which is exactly where the biggest coast redwoods grow. Centuries of floods have laid down deep silt here, and the groundwater never fails in the dry summer, so the flats are the giants’ nursery.
Walk slowly and look up the trunks rather than across them. Look down too: the clover-like carpet is redwood sorrel, which folds its leaves down within minutes when direct sun lands on it, and the big shuttlecock ferns are sword ferns.
Pro tip: Come early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Midday in summer the small lot fills and the trail gets busy; at the edges of the day you can have the grove nearly to yourself.
- • The loop is flat and short, about half a mile, and easy for most visitors.
- • Dogs are not allowed on the trail (service animals excepted).
- • Parking is limited; arrive early or late in summer.
- • There’s no cell signal to speak of. Download what you need first.
- How long is the Founders Grove trail?
- The Founders Grove nature loop is about half a mile and nearly flat. Most people take 30 to 45 minutes, including time at the fallen Dyerville Giant.
- Is Founders Grove worth stopping for?
- Yes. It is the single best short stop on the Avenue of the Giants: an easy walk through huge old-growth redwoods, plus the fallen Dyerville Giant, once the tallest known tree in the world.
