Damnation Creek Trail

Published by

Caitlyn

on

December 6, 2025

We arrived at the Damnation Creek trailhead at 12:45PM on Tuesday, September 9. It was the sixth day of our road trip with four more to go.

The parking lot is just a little gravel alcove along the Newton-Drury Scenic Highway and we had it all to ourselves, unsuprising since it hadn’t really stopped raining for 24 hours.

The Damnation Creek trail is about four and a half miles long, an out-and-back that leads to where the redwoods meet the Pacific Ocean. You walk a little over two miles almost all downhill to the ocean, then turn around and it all over again going uphill.

The hike is marked “hard” on AllTrails and there’s ~1,100ft of elevation gain. It was definitely a work out on the way back up, but nothing that couldn’t be handled with a steady pace and lots of snack breaks.

Damnation Creek is within the Del Norte Redwoods State Park section of the Redwoods National & State Parks coglomerate. From what I’ve seen, this is the most popular hike in this section other than one called Hobbs Wall.

Arguably the best thing about hiking in the redwoods is that the trails are always so soft from all of the pine needles that have fallen over the years. So squishy and comfy.

Man-sized ferns and drapes of moss line every surface. It continued to spit some rain, but it’s not a big deal out there considering you’re always umbrella’d by the canopy of the endless trees who catch the rain for themselves before it ever has a chance to get on your head.

There were a ton of bananas hanging out as per usual.

After the two mile downhill through the redwood forest, you fit a few aesthetic bridges that bring you to the coast line. Seeing it pop around the corner for the first time was such a breathtaking moment. We hadn’t seen another person the entire time.

Man. The Pacific is so beautiful with it’s million huge boulders sticking out everywhere.

From there, you overlook where Damnation Creek feeds into the Pacific. There’s an impressive sized log pile up and barely the remnants of a steep section of stairs that leads down the cliffside and into the ravine.

There’s this sound I never heard before this trip – the sound of a bazillion round black rocks gliding against each other over and over as they’re pulled back and forth by waves. I wish I could bottle it up.

We weren’t able to time our hike with low tide so we didn’t have a chance to explore the tide pools here. I read that they’re supposed to be pretty abundant here. They’re pretty well gatekept considering you have to do allll that walking to get here at with perfect timing.

We ate a quick snack (duh) and headed back out as the tide continued to rise.

We explored the opposite side of the window, then scaled the barely-stairs to return to the main trail and back the way we came.

Even though there’s technically a “beach” at this trail, it’s not a sandy one like how some people expect. Coming back up, we passed a couple of girls who seemed pretty bummed out by that fact and surprised by the amount of work they were about to get in to on this hike. Personally, I’m obsessed with rocks and I HATE sand so I was perfectly content – just something to be aware of.