Lyons Ranch Home Place

Lyons Ranch Home Place is the historic home site within a 5,660-acre ranching district: a redwood-plank barn, bunkhouse and orchard on open prairie above the Redwood Creek watershed. The broad grassland and scattered oaks feel far removed from Redwood’s shaded groves. This is a worthwhile stop for the ranching story and open landscape if a four-mile walk fits your day.

From Lyons Ranch Trailhead, Home Place is about two miles down a dirt road, or four miles round trip, with roughly 400 feet of descent on the way in and a climb back out. The route is exposed and hot in summer; winter snow can make it difficult. The gravel trailhead holds about a dozen cars and has no water or facilities. Bald Hills Road is not recommended for RVs, campers or vehicles towing trailers, and pets are not allowed on park trails.

The historic district preserves the period from 1868 to 1959, when the Lyons family ran sheep ranches on as many as eight Bald Hills prairies over three generations. Jonathan Lyons came west from Iowa and married Amelia, a Hupa woman. Their wool received a gold medal at the 1901 Paris Exposition. The Home Place barn was built from large redwood planks made with 19th-century equipment, using construction techniques influenced by Yurok and Hupa traditions; it housed horses, cattle, sheep and rabbits.

The orchard has more than 40 fruit and nut trees, including walnut, apple, pear, cherry and plum, as well as grapevine remnants. One historic apple variety, Gloria Mundi, was said to produce fruit up to 18 inches across. The open prairie has its own history: the ranch family used burning to keep the grassland open, a practice federal policy outlawed in the 1930s before prescribed fire returned to the Bald Hills about fifty years later. For a photo, include meadow in front of the barn so the open setting stays in the frame.