Lady Bird Johnson Grove

Lady Bird Johnson Grove was the site chosen for the formal dedication of Redwood National Park on August 27, 1969, when First Lady Lady Bird Johnson joined Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel beneath a stand of old-growth redwood that had been growing since before the Norman Conquest. The commemorative plaque still stands at the grove's highest point, surrounded by trees whose root systems date to roughly 800 CE. The loop trail crosses Bald Hills Road on a wooden footbridge and circles through a cathedral grove of coast redwood and Douglas fir, the canopy so dense that sunlight reaches the forest floor only in scattered beams through the fog. Detailed interpretive signs along the trail explain the ecology of the old-growth system — the role of fire, the nurse log cycle by which fallen giants nurture the next generation, and the epiphytic gardens that colonize the canopy 200 feet above. The grove sits at 1,600 feet elevation on the Bald Hills ridge, which means it often sits above the coastal fog inversion layer, delivering sunny conditions when the redwood parks below are socked in. It remains one of the least crowded old-growth walks in the entire park complex.