Every Trail Tells a Story
Flint Ridge
Walk through a living history of logging, floods, and conservation along one of the park’s most varied forest trails.
Climb into a world of old-growth redwoods, ferny understory, and sweeping Klamath River views.
Reach a quiet walk-in camp at trail’s end where the ocean’s roar is your lullaby.
Historians note that in pre-park days the magnificent redwoods on Flint Ridge were considered as the centerpiece for a Redwood National Park. Alas, timber companies toppled many of the big trees before the national park got off the drawing board.
That being said, plenty of trees remain to be seen along this hike through the redwoods and across a ridge to the mouth of the Klamath River. The path, once known as Flint Ridge Trail, is now officially the Flint Ridge Section of the Coastal Trail.
This hike begins with a pause for history. At the trailhead you stand where the Douglas Memorial Bridge once carried Highway 101 travelers over the Klamath. The 1926 arch bridge was an elegant piece of road-building, wiped away by the devastating Christmas flood of 1964. Today only its abutments remain, but for those who know the story, it’s a reminder of both nature’s power and human impermanence.
Just beyond lies Marshall Pond, a onetime millpond that has mellowed into a bird sanctuary. Ducks paddle the waters while thickets of blackberry fringe the shoreline. It’s hard to imagine this placid pond was once central to the redwood logging industry that scarred Flint Ridge. If irony had feathers, it would quack.
From here the trail climbs. Switchback after switchback delivers you into redwood country proper, where sorrel carpets the ground and salal crowds the edges. Some trees stretch 12 feet across – redwoods that somehow escaped the saw. They rise above you like living columns, a kind of second chance forest. Flint Ridge may not have become the “centerpiece grove” some once envisioned, but it still has the power to impress, shelter, and silence the hiker.
Climbing to the ridgetop, you’re rewarded with vistas down the Klamath River canyon, a broad, impressive sweep of water and wilderness. Descending west, the trail becomes a sampler of forest histories: patches of logged-over land, stretches of second-growth redwoods, then lush alder and spruce groves alive with ferns. The air shifts too – from inland stillness to the salt-scented breath of the Pacific.
At the end of the hike sits Flint Ridge Camp, a modest walk-in campground with 11 sites, picnic tables, and toilets (but no water – hikers beware). It’s simple, quiet, and perched just close enough to the ocean to hear the breakers crash at night. For the day hiker, it’s a fine turnaround point; for the backpacker, a sweet retreat with a front-row seat to the edge of the continent.
From Highway 101, just south of the long bridges spanning the Klamath River, head west 1.6 miles on Klamath Beach Road to a junction with Alder Camp Road. Look for a small lot and the trailhead across from the Douglas Memorial Bridge site.
Head northeast into a thick woodland of red alder. Watch for a beaver dam as the path approaches Marshall Pond. The trail meets a dirt road and after two left turns traces the north shore of the pond.
Resuming as a footpath, it ascends to redwoods at the first switchback, and more and more redwoods with the switchbacks that follow on the climb up Flint Ridge. At your feet is redwood sorrel and salal, while high above your head soar mighty redwoods (some measuring 12 feet in diameter) as well as Douglas fir.
Around the 2-mile mark, the path gains the ridgeline and offers a vista of the Klamath River canyon. The trail hugs the ridge before descending through a mixture of second-growth redwoods, logged-over forest, and lush alder-spruce groves. Near the end of the hike, you’ll hear the breakers. A short spur leads to Flint Ridge Camp; beyond, the trail ends at Coastal Drive.