Van Damme State Park

Drive up Highway 1 and blink-you might miss the turnoff for Van Damme State Park, tucked neatly against the hamlet of Little River. But if you pass it by, you’ll be missing one of the most varied and family-friendly state parks along the north coast. Few parks in California offer such a surprising sampler platter: ocean cove, fern canyon, redwood forest, and the one-of-a-kind Pygmy Forest.

Let’s start at the bottom. At Van Damme Beach, the park embraces a small cove that’s a magnet for kayakers, divers, and tidepool explorers. You can watch the kayakers paddling out into the sea caves, or just plant yourself on the sand and listen to the surf.

From there, Little River carries you inland, and the canyon it carves is anything but little. This is Fern Canyon-lush, green, and downright Jurassic in feeling. Kids walk into this canyon and start whispering, as though they expect a dinosaur to poke its head out from behind the five-finger ferns-not to mention the bird’s foot, lady, stamp, sword, and deer ferns. On a foggy day, when the redwoods exhale mist, Fern Canyon becomes one of the most enchanting places on the coast. Even the grumpiest hiker tends to soften under the spell of those ferns and filtered light.

The park’s main canyon trail system climbs steadily inland for about three miles. Along the way, you pass through redwood groves, alder stands, and carpets of oxalis and trillium. The further you go, the quieter it gets. There’s a rhythm to this hike: the steady hush of Little River, the creak of tree trunks shifting in the wind, the occasional squeak of a child spotting a banana slug the size of a hot dog.

And then comes the surprise waiting at the top: the Pygmy Forest. You’ve gone from towering redwoods to trees that look like they’ve been bonsai’d by Mother Nature herself. Here, the soil is so acidic and nutrient-poor that bishop pine, cypress, and rhododendron have been stunted for centuries. Some of the “trees” are barely taller than a Christmas shrub, yet they may be several hundred years old. It’s both funny and awe-inspiring. Kids love it because, for once, the forest is their size. Adults can’t help but chuckle and think, “I drove all the way up here to see a forest shorter than me?” But when you realize how these little trees have survived and adapted, you start to see the Pygmy Forest as an ecological marvel-a natural history lesson in resilience.

What makes Van Damme special is the way it compresses California’s landscapes into one park. Ocean, canyon, redwoods, and pygmies-plus springtime rhododendrons that burst into pink flame. And unlike some other coastal parks where trails are steep or scattered, Van Damme’s are well-marked and just challenging enough to make you feel like you’ve earned your picnic at the end.

Van Damme is also a park of stories. The town of Little River grew up around logging, but the canyon was preserved in the 1930s thanks to Charles Van Damme, a San Francisco businessman who left money in his will to establish the park. And yes, if the name sounds like a martial arts movie star, that’s part of the fun-you can joke that you’re “hiking Van Damme” and feel tough even if your biggest challenge is spotting a banana slug.

For me, Van Damme is a place I love introducing to others. Fern Canyon never disappoints, the Pygmy Forest always brings smiles, and the combination of wild ocean and quiet woods reminds you just how lucky we are to have these state parks along the coast.