Great to hear from you, It was almost a year ago that we had out GTG in Mexico. Have you heard of Limekiln State park? It contains the southernmost coastal Redwoods and is a fantastic place to camp right off highway 1 close to Big Sur , but not nearly as crowded. They have camping in the Redwoods as well as on the Beach :

http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=577

http://www.virtualparks.org/scenes/ZtOQbCS9cNzsx1TbtaGQHgw.html ( a nice panorama )

We also just visited Butano State Park, a gem of a place at the western base of the Santa Cruz mountains. This park contains some nice groves of coastal redwoods and seems to be much less crowded than Big Basin:

http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=536

I have not visited the Nelder grove ( yet) but I am not nearly done with my collection. I did manage to make it up to Mountain Home State park and I was extremely impressed with the solitude and beauty of it. Balch Park was also quite nice, and not many people know about it. We recently followed the Kern River up canyon through Sequoia National Forest and I believe i found the southernmost Sequoias (not coastal) at The trail of 100 Giants off the Western divide Highway. We visited several groves throughout the forest as well as Sequoia National Monument, where found (with much trouble) the newly acquired Dillionwood Grove.

At Mineral King we found several groves but could not leave the car due to Marmots, they seem to thrive on wires and rubber and like to snack under car hoods! We met a man who had left his car for a day long hike, and when he returned his car wouldn't start because the Marmots had destroyed his electrical system, among other things. Every parked car i saw in mineral King had furry marmot tails dangling from the undercarriage, beware!

One of the most interesting things I have done is bike the Ave of the Giants and discover the 101 oddities along the avenue! There is an albino redwood, the worlds ugliest redwood ( its a Dawn Redwood,) a host of movie locations, and a full Redwood that has fallen in one piece which can be walked from bottom to top!

http://www.myersinn.com/weird.html

Yup, i think its time for a camping trip! Take care,

Amelia the Redwood Freak