Lady Bird Johnson Grove

Popular Lady Bird Johnson Loop Trail tours an inspiring ridgetop redwood grove and offers a fine introduction to the national park. Flat and easy, it’s a popular path because the trailhead is close to the main park visitor center and rangers frequently recommend it to first-time visitors.

During her 1960s stint as First Lady, Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson promoted beautification and conservation projects, lending political clout to the campaign for a Redwood National Park. With her help, conservationists prevailed upon a reluctant Congress to purchase land and protect the redwoods.

In 1968, Lady Bird Johnson attended the park’s dedication ceremony, standing beneath the same redwoods you walk among today. The grove was formally dedicated to her the following year by her husband’s political nemesis, President Richard Nixon. A Nixon-Johnson collaboration? The very thought would make most historians blink. Yet there he was, honoring Lady Bird. It’s a reminder that politics can take strange turns, and that sometimes even sworn adversaries agree when it comes to trees.

Lady Bird herself, at the dedication, struck a hopeful chord: “Conservation is indeed a bipartisan business because all of us have the same stake in this magnificent continent.” Hearing those words today, one might sigh wistfully – bipartisanship in Washington now seems nearly as endangered as the marbled murrelet.

The trail, built for the ceremony, still loops gently among old-growth redwoods on Bald Hills Ridge. Benches encourage sitting awhile to listen to the forest and watch mist creep between the trunks. At 1,200 feet elevation, the grove is often fog-bound, which only adds to its hushed, cathedral-like atmosphere.

Step out briefly from the trees, and you’ll face a less-than-heavenly sight: evidence of clear-cut logging that once scarred the ridges. Much of that cutover land has since been added to state and national parks. Imagine if Lady Bird and her allies hadn’t prevailed – Redwood National Park might have been “Stump National Monument.”

For those who want more effort with their inspiration, Berry Glen Trail climbs three miles from Elk Prairie through a mosaic of second- and old-growth to meet this loop. It’s a tougher way in, but perhaps more in tune with Lady Bird’s own spirit of determination.

The grove is undeniably historic, its story worth knowing. But Trailmaster advice? If you’ve time for only one loop trail in Redwood National Park, head for Cathedral Trees. That loop gives a fuller sampling of the park’s most majestic colonnades.