Every Trail Tells a Story
Damnation Creek
To walk one of the park’s most dramatic forest-to-sea transitions.
For rhododendrons and redwoods side by side, with ocean views thrown in.
To say you survived the climb back from Damnation Cove – and loved it anyway.
In the Damnation Creek watershed, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park delivers the scenery in its name: an impressive coastline, as well as magnificent old-growth redwoods. Joining the redwoods on the wild coastal slope are other big trees – Sitka spruce and Douglas fir.
Steep Damnation Creek Trail plunges through old-growth redwood forest to a hidden rocky beach. Giant ferns, and the pink and purple rhododendron blossoms climbing 30 feet overhead, contribute to the impression that one has strayed into a tropical rain forest.
The name “Damnation” sounds like something dreamed up by a hiker gasping back up from the cove on a hot day, but the story goes it originated with settlers who cursed their way through the thick forest near the creek. Even Jedediah Smith – frontiersman, explorer, no stranger to hardship – camped here in 1828 and recorded the rough going. If it slowed down Jedediah, you can imagine what it does to us mere mortals.
Hikers still mutter “damnation” on the steep return climb, but the truth is, this trail is heaven and hell rolled into one. Heaven: towering redwoods, rhododendrons climbing skyward, ocean glimpses framed by spruce. Hell: that thousand-foot climb back from the beach, which somehow feels twice as long going up as it did coming down.
The first half-mile is a sensory tug-of-war: your eyes feast on stately redwoods while your ears endure the rumble of Highway 101. Push on, though, and the forest slowly drowns out the traffic. By the time you hear the faint bark of sea lions and the deep roar of surf, you’ll know you’ve traded civilization for wildness.
Descending deeper, the redwoods give way to spruce more tolerant of salt air, and the air itself changes – cooler, moister, carrying the tang of the Pacific. Bridges cross the creek’s branches, and switchbacks keep you guessing when the ocean will appear. Then, suddenly, you’re standing at a clifftop perch, gazing down at Damnation Cove where creek meets surf, framed by sea stacks.
Getting to the beach requires a rocky scramble, but if the tide is out, you can explore north and south along the cove. If the tide is high, stay safe, sit back, and consider that for all its devilish name, Damnation Creek is one heavenly place to hike.
From Highway 101 in Crescent City, head 8 miles south to the signed turnout on the coast side of the highway at mile-marker 16.
The trail soon leaves the sights (though not entirely the sounds) of Highway 101 behind as it climbs through redwood forest for 0.25 mile, crests a ridge, and begins its long oceanward descent. The biggest redwoods come first; everything seems oversized here, from the trunks of ancient redwoods to the sprawling rhododendrons and huckleberry bushes. At 0.6 mile the path meets and briefly follows the old Highway 101, now Coastal Trail, before continuing downhill.
Switchbacks carry you ever closer to the sea, with glimpses of the Pacific through the trees. Wooden bridges ease the crossings of two branches of Damnation Creek. Nearing the end, the path reaches a clifftop overlook above the creek’s mouth before dropping on a rocky stairway to Damnation Cove, a wild shore best explored at low tide.