Stout Grove was kinda like our last mental checkbox of the “major” redwood hikes. It was the first dedicated grove in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park (1929!), which is the northernmost part of the Redwood National & State Parks system.

I love driving on nerve-wracking windy roads so much (call me crazy, idk) and I’d take any chance to get back on Howland Hills Road. This was our third visit on it.

It’s better to get to this part of the Redwoods as early as you can, the parking area is pretty minimal considering how popular it is. We came at the end of the busy season (early September, after Labor Day) so we had no parking issues anywhere, but in the summer it seems like it could be super brutal and jam packed.

“Stout Grove, a majestic example of an ancient coast redwood forest, is often considered to be the heart of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. In 1929, Mrs. Clara Stout donated this 44-acre grove to the Save the Redwoods League to save it from being logged and to memorialize her husband, lumbar baron Frank D. Stout. Today, land continues to be added to these northernmost parks through the efforts of the League.

“A walk along this loop trail reveals colossal redwoods thriving in rich soil deposited during periodic flooding of the Smith River. Here, waist-high sword ferns carpet the forest floor and normally flared tree bases are covered in river soils. Flood waters inhibit the growth of understory trees and plants seen in other groves, leaving the 300-foot redwoods as the main attraction. A short spur trail leads you to the serpentine waters of the Smith River.”

In 2018, the Parks Service installed this platform to protect the fragile root system of the Stout Tree – the largest tree in this grove and the 9th largest tree in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. It’s 325+ feet tall.

Even though redwood trees seem super strong because they are so mega tall, their root systems are actually really shallow. The shallow, ancient, roots are vulnerable when it comes to being walked on over and over by a bunch of tourists and aren’t able to recover from the erosion/damage caused by that.

Crazy to think these trees, but especially the roots at the base, are 100’s to 1000’s years old.

We arrived to the parking area around 7:30am on a Thursday. It was chilly, foggy, threatening to start spitting rain again… and I’m not even mad because that meant we had the entire place to ourselves. A nice pattern we had going on this trip – I’m not questioning it.

See that little infographic about the banana slug on the trailhead sign? They’re truly the guardians of the redwoods.

Think about how amazing it is that the ONLY thing banana slugs don’t eat are redwood seeds and redwood seedlings. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

The little loop trail from the parking ares is just 0.6 miles long and totally flat along the squishy redwood mulch. Super chill and easy for an early morning lazy walk.

This state park was named after Jedediah Strong Smith who, in the 1800’s, was a pioneer and fur trader from the Rocky Mountains who helped make the first-ever maps of this area. Oh, and he survived a bear mauling. Casual.

And of course we had to do some geocaching for a hot second… how cool is it that it was hanging in the dark inside of this hollow redwood tree?!

Stout Memorial Grove via NPS:
https://www.nps.gov/places/stoutgrove.htm

Stout Memorial Grove trail via AllTrails:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/california/stout-memorial-grove-trail

About the Stout Tree:
http://famousredwoods.com/stout/

More about the Stout Tree:
https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/news/stoutree.htm

More about Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park:
https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=413

Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park via RedwoodHikes:
https://www.redwoodhikes.com/JedSmith/JedSmith.html