Headwaters Forest Reserve

Dogs and bikes have to turn around at mile 3. That's the rule visitors get wrong most often here, because the Elk River Trail opens with a paved, wheelchair-accessible mile and reads like an all-access path. It isn't. The full trail is 11 miles round trip, and the old-growth redwoods sit at the far end, up a steep incline in the last two miles, where neither dogs nor bikes are permitted.

Congress established the 7,472-acre Reserve on March 1, 1999, on the ancestral homeland of the Wiyot people, and BLM manages it in consultation with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl nest in the canopy. Coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout use the creeks.

Budget the time honestly. BLM splits the Elk River Trail into a moderate first three miles at 1.5 to 2.5 hours, then 2.5 unpaved and moderately strenuous miles at another 2 to 2.5 hours. The Headwaters Education Center is half a mile in and staffed only on Sundays, noon to 3 p.m., June through September.

The South Side Trail runs 1.5 moderately steep miles and is open May through November only. It links with the Elk River Trail to form a 2.5-mile loop. No dogs, no bikes on that one either.

There's exactly one way to see the south end of the Reserve: the Salmon Pass Trail, and only on a BLM docent-led hike. Twelve people per hike, weekends, May 15 through November 15, three miles round trip with 360 feet of elevation change over three to four hours. Registration opens on Recreation.gov two months ahead and closes three days before each hike. The hike itself is free, with a non-refundable $1 booking fee. Hikers meet in Fortuna and caravan to the trailhead.