Mondays–V5E31c–Vacay Day 3, Aug. 2, Redwood Sky, Trinidad and Su-Meg

Vacay Day 3. Friday August 2, 2024 , 9,097 steps

We were up and the door this morning again by 9:30. Breakfast from a drive through McDonald’s then on to Redwood Skywalk at the Sequoia Park Zoo. Although Jennifer is afraid of heights, she was willing to do the skywalk with me. At its highest point, it is 100′ feet off the ground and is the longest skywalk in the western United States, just under 1/4 mile to the end and back. Nestled among the redwood trees, it has been the site of the filming of scenes from Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, as well as Jurassic Park, The Lost World. The majestic trees stand tall and rise high above the 100-foot elevation.

Our next stop was the beach at Trinidad but much to our dismay, the beach access was closed due to soil erosion. We decided to then drive to Su-Meg State Park in Trinidad.

On September 30, 2021, the California State Park and Recreation Commission voted unanimously to change the name of Patrick’s Point State Park to Sue-meg State Park.

The name “Sue-meg” has been used by Yurok people to describe the area where the park is now located since time immemorial. In 1851, Irish homesteader Patrick Beegan recorded a preemption claim on the westernmost promontory of the peninsula and built a small cabin there. Beegen was implicated in the murder of a Native American boy in 1854, then escaped to the Bald Hills, east of present-day Orick. In 1864, he led a militia to a Native American village where numerous Indigenous people were massacred. Although Beegen lived in the Sue-meg area for less than three years, other homesteaders came to call the area “Patrick’s Ranch” or “Patrick’s Point”.

When the State of California purchased the site in 1930 and brought it into the State Parks system, they adopted the name already widely in use at the time, Patrick’s Point. In spite of that, Yurok people continued to call the area by its original place name, Sue-meg. In 1990, the Yurok community worked with California State Parks to build a recreated Yurok village within the park, and gave the village the name “Sumêg” to honor the ancient name associated with the place.

In January of 2021, the Yurok Tribe formally requested that the California State Park and Recreation Commission change the name of Patrick’s Point State Park to Sue-meg State Park. https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30927

Agate Beach is another beach near Trinidad but because it has a very steep climb down to the beach, we decided it probably wasn’t the best idea and settled for just looking at it. After recuperating at home for a few hours we were back out to a street fair in Eureka just blocks from the bay.