Once a week, the hostel unveils its fairly large TV to screen documentaries! Cozy up on the couch and join us for An Inconvenient Truth, A Map for Saturday, Luna: The Stafford Giant Tree-sit (the story of Julia Butterfly Hill), or other eco- and travel-themed documentaries.

Together we might share a bowl of popcorn, heat water for tea, trade stories and barbs, or have a post-doc discussion. Everyone welcome, hostellers and the general public alike.

Bring your own bicycle and travel a 4.5-mile loop gravel road and trail to the wetland edge of beautiful Lake Earl, the West Coast's largest coastal lagoon. Learn from area naturalist Sandra Jerabek about the lagoon's fascinating history, biology, and ecology at special stops along the way. Includes a short hike to Goose Point.

For more information, call the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association at (707) 488-2169.

Sponsored by the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association, California State Parks, and California Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with the Tolowa Dunes Stewards and California Coastal Commission's Whale Tail License Plate Grant Program.  

Gather 'round the campfire for a Redwood National and State Parks ranger-led program. The public is welcome to attend!

If you can, arrive a bit early and spend time elk-watching or tree-gawking. Elk Prairie is surrounded by old growth trees, and near the secret location of the world's tallest tree. Look up, and see what you find...

Campfire program topics vary and include: "Wave of the Future" (tsunamis), "Bear Necessities: American Black Bears," "Discovering the Dark Side of the Redwood Forest," "When Plates Collide" (earthquakes), "California's Wildly Fascinating Fires," "The Farm That Wasn't," "Roosevelt Elk: More than just Big Deer!," "The Whale's Journey," and "Flower Power." 

Daily and nightly programs are offered throughout the summertime. Download this week's schedule from the Redwood National and State Parks website.

When we chopped, sawed, and woodchipped the original redwood forests, we nearly toppled it all. Ninety-six percent. Just gone. And that little squiggle of what's left isn't completely protected, so little by little groups like the Save-the-Redwoods League purchase what they can, and wait and see what they can protect.

Their largest and latest purchase? It's just up the road from the Redwood Hostel at the Mill Creek watershed, which entered the protected, public domain in 2002. Some of the oldest trees, they're still here. Some of what was felled is rising again, and there's a beauty to witnessing the rebirth. Our own Wilson Creek flows through the watershed and into the ocean at our feet.

Join an interpretive ranger to explore the farthest reaches of the Mill Creek Watershed, part of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. Reservations are not required, but if you'd like more information, call (707) 465-7398. This special tour will repeat on July 20, August 3, August 17, and September 7.

Kayak the continental West Coast's largest coastal lagoon with Terri Klemetson, a field ornithologist with Tolowa Dunes Stewards. Soak up the sun of the lagoons, a wide-open-sky foil to the cloaked-in-shade redwood forests you'll spend most of the time tromping through during your hostel stay.

Reservations required; call the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association at (707) 488-2169.

Sponsored by the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association, California State Parks, and California Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with the Tolowa Dunes Stewards and California Coastal Commission's Whale Tail License Plate Grant Program.

Skunk Cabbage helps your liver? Willow bark mellows a headache? The Cascara Sagrada tree gets your bowels a movin’? Walk with herbalist Julie Caldwell to learn these and other medicinal secrets of the coastal lagoons.

For more information, call the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association at (707) 488-2169.

Sponsored by the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association, California State Parks, and California Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with the Tolowa Dunes Stewards and California Coastal Commission's Whale Tail License Plate Grant Program.

When we chopped, sawed, and woodchipped the original redwood forests, we nearly toppled it all. Ninety-six percent. Just gone. And that little squiggle of what's left isn't completely protected, so little by little groups like the Save-the-Redwoods League purchase what they can, and wait and see what they can protect.

Their largest and latest purchase? It's just up the road from the Redwood Hostel at the Mill Creek watershed, which entered the protected, public domain in 2002. Some of the oldest trees, they're still here. Some of what was felled is rising again, and there's a beauty to witnessing the rebirth. Our own Wilson Creek flows through the watershed and into the ocean at our feet.

Join an interpretive ranger to explore the farthest reaches of the Mill Creek Watershed, part of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. Reservations are not required, but if you'd like more information, call (707) 465-7398. This special tour will repeat on August 3, August 17, and September 7.

Help restore the dunes to their natural state by pulling, pulling, and pulling invasive weeds with Laura Julian, botanist for Redwood National and State Parks. Soak up the sun, and soak up some knowledge with Laura and the Tolowa Dunes Stewards volunteer crew.

For more information, call the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association at (707) 488-2169.

Sponsored by the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association, California State Parks, and California Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with the Tolowa Dunes Stewards and California Coastal Commission's Whale Tail License Plate Grant Program.

Join Naturalist Jenny Hanson on a three-hour discovery walk of Tolowa Dunes. Discover the area's unique plant habitat, and introduce yourself to the millennia-old history of the Tolowa people, who suffered greatly under white settlement but have survived, and now thrive, in Del Norte County. 

For more information, call the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association at (707) 488-2169.

Sponsored by the North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association, California State Parks, and the California Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with the Tolowa Dunes Stewards and California Coastal Commission's Whale Tail License Plate Grant Program.

O' the Joys of the Farmers Market!

Now, summertime brings many markets up and down the coast, inland and outland of the valleys, and even into the urban moshpits of civilization. Yet this particular market is just a bit... special.

It's difficult to put into words, but it's easy to recommend a special trip Saturday morning to this music-playing, kid-dancing, hula-hooping, carrot-buying weekly moment on the Arcata Plaza. It's a drive from the hostel (an hour south), so this event really speaks to you -- all of you who pack up Saturday morning and leave the hostel on the "Gotta Get to San Francisco Tonight" route. Stop here. Stretch. Eat an apple. Talk to the man in the feathered hat selling cactus plants in a rainforest. Weave in and out of jogging strollers, hop over to the Tincan Mailman Bookstore or Moonrise Herbs, fill your reusable shopping bag with veggies, and get blanching tips from the bonnet-wearing farmer girl.

Watch a two-minute YouTube video of the market here. 

This is THE summertime event around here! The everyone's-on-their-front-porches town celebration starts with a parade downtown at 10 a.m., followed by food, merchandise, and game booths at Beachfront Park. Live music rounds out the day.

One of the biggest fireworks shows starts after 9 p.m. Fireworks are shot over the beautiful Battery Point Lighthouse for an amazing display.

For more information, call the Del Norte-Crescent City Chamber of Commerce at (707) 464-3174.

The Land of the $15 Yoga Class is far, far away by the time you reach Del Norte County!

Enjoy an affordable yet challenging 90-minute yoga class in the Bikram style, at the Crescent City Healing Arts Center. Taught by Risa, this class is suitable for all levels. Though prepare yourself to sweat.

Summer is certainly the time for trekking through the forest with a knowledgeable interpreter leading the way. Daily nature walks are offered at various locations around Redwood National and State Parks, such as Lady Bird Johnson Grove, Simpson-Reed Grove, Stout Grove, Nickerson Ranch trailhead, and the Lagoon Creek - Yurok Loop trailhead (1/4 mile south of the Redwood Hostel). Pick up a park map at the hostel or at any visitor center.

Nature walk topics vary, and include: "Life and Death in the Redwood Forest," "Do Fish Grow on Trees?" "Children and Giants: Life in the Understory," and "Owls and Old Growth." All ages welcome! Some walks are ADA-accessible. Download this week's schedule from the Redwood National and State Parks website.

Come see Yurok Dancers from the Klamath/Trinity watershed area demonstrate a Yurok Brush Dance in Redwood National and State Parks.

Traditionally performed as a curing ceremony for a sick child by the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk tribes, everyone is welcome to share in this free celebration of local cultural diversity.

Two dances will be performed, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Half an hour prior to each dance, Yurok Tribe member and traditional toolmaker Dale Webster will present a Redwood dugout canoe he carved himself by hand.

Come watch as members of the Tolowa Nation conduct a renewal dance demonstration at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

Dancing is vital to the Tolowa culture, which aims to reconnect the relationship between humans and earth, while passing on ancestral language, arts, and traditions to the next generation.

Two dances will be performed, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., in the day use area of the park.