When Nature Gives You Rain, Visit a Waterfall 

While I don't mind hiking in a drizzle, particularly in the redwoods, where rainfall is broken by the canopy ("Forest Bathing in the Redwoods," Get Out, June 15, 2023), the intense rain of recent months kept me away from favorite trails. Finally, on Easter Sunday, after a few days without a storm, I felt it was time to hike in Redwood National Park, look for blooming trilliums and visit Trillium Falls.

One nice characteristic of this hike is that you can make it shorter or longer to suit your wishes. You can start with the Trillium Falls Trail with the option to add the Berry Glen Trail and, for maximum hiking time, the Lady Bird Johnson Grove one.

If you opt for the longer version, I suggest starting with the Berry Glen rail, because it goes uphill to Lady Bird Johnson Grove. The trail starts on the other side of U.S. Highway 101 from the Elk Meadow Day Use Area (which offers plentiful parking). There is signage in place but I recommend carrying a paper map for areas where cell reception is weak.

The Berry Glen Trail is less traveled than other park locations, which means it is quiet. I love how the light filters down from the canopy — varying in intensity depending on the trees' density — the smell of wood and green, the soft sound of my footsteps. The steady uphill feels contemplative, like a pilgrimage.

Once you reach the hilltop and the end of the trail, you can immediately go back down, or hike the Lady Bird Johnson Grove Trail as a loop. It is an interpretive trail and the online version of the guided tour is available on the National Park Service digital app.

Back on the Berry Glen Trail, enjoy the downhill return: Take in the view, let the quiet outside flow inside you with each inhale.

After you cross U.S. HIghway 101 to return to the Elk Meadow Day Use Area, you're ready to hike to Trillium Falls. As this is a loop, you can either go straight to the waterfall and then complete the loop, or choose delayed gratification and leave that highlight for last by hiking clockwise. The latter is my preferred option.

Along the Trillium Falls Trail, my quest came to a successful end: I spotted Pacific trilliums (Trillium ovatum, a.k.a. western trillium, western white trillium, or western wakerobin, the most common trillium species in our area) at different stages of blooming.

As I learned on the U.S. Forest Service website (fs.usda.gov), trilliums sprout each year from rhizomes, underground stems. The above ground "stem" is a peduncle. Each trillium consists of three bracts (leaflike structures that in trilliums "have external and internal structure similar to that of a leaf, function in photosynthesis," and are referred to leaves by most authors), three sepals (the leaf-like structures that enclose the unopened bud), and three white petals, arranged in whorls. I consider trillium the botanical correspondent of a triangle. Notably, the petals change from white to pink or purple as they age.

After admiring trilliums, it came time to shift my admiring gaze to Trillium Falls. This waterfall is a small jewel set in a beautiful, shaded, almost cozy surrounding, with a large moss-draped bigleaf maple guarding it and ferns, fallen logs and boulders around it. A bridge just downstream allows you to look straight at the falling water and take nice photos. And with eyes full of beauty, soon you're back to the day-use area.

I consider my time in the forest an interval to recharge. While the hike might not solve personal or world problems, it gives me the energy and balance to take them on in a calmer way. I hope it does the same to you.

Simona Carini (she/her) shares photographs of her outdoor explorations (and of food) on Instagram @simonacarini. The redwood forest appears in three of the poems included in her collection Survival Time from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, simonacarini.com.