Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area

When most travelers think of redwoods, they imagine cathedral groves of giants rising straight and solemn from the forest floor. Standish-Hickey has its share of tall trees, but that’s not what keeps people coming back. Here it’s all about the river-the Eel River, to be exact.

The South Fork of the Eel runs right through the park, carving cliffs and depositing gravel bars, creating swimming holes and fishing runs, changing its moods with every season. In winter it roars, swollen with rain, carrying silt and entire trees downstream. In summer it lazes, warm enough to swim, clear enough to tempt every camper to wade in. Because the Eel is so unruly, the park removes all its footbridges each fall. Only after the flood danger passes in spring do they return-sometimes late, sometimes not at all. Trails that look so inviting in July can be unreachable in March. It’s part of the Eel’s character, and part of the hiker’s adventure.

The park itself owes its existence to two families. The Standishes and the Hickeys donated much of the land, and the park’s signature tree-the Captain Miles Standish Tree-honors a descendant of the Pilgrim leader. The big tree is a battered veteran, fire-scarred but still standing 225 feet tall and 13 feet in diameter, estimated to be more than 1,200 years old. The rest of the redwoods here are mostly second growth, but they give welcome shade on a hot summer’s day.

Mining and logging defined this stretch of Mendocino County for more than a century, but the Eel has always been the real star. Rising in the Yolla Bolly Wilderness and running 190 miles to Humboldt Bay, the river has a way of commanding attention. At Standish-Hickey, the canyon narrows and the water presses hard against steep, forested bluffs. It’s a dramatic scene, whether you’re looking down from the Lookout Trail or right up close along Big Tree and Mill Creek Trails.

Standish-Hickey is often called the “gateway to the redwoods” since it’s the first major redwood park north of Highway 101’s junction with Highway 1. But for hikers, the gateway is less about redwoods and more about a chance to walk with the Eel-its floods, its cliffs, its swimming holes, its constant reminder that rivers, not people, still shape this land.