CALIFORNIA: REDWOODS NATIONAL AND STATE PARKS, Day 1

 August 8, 2020

After a good night's sleep, we left Redding and drove northwest towards the coast, passing through small towns like Willow Creek (population about 1,500), where we stopped for gas and had our first couple of sightings of Bigfoot. Northern California is obsessed with Bigfoot.

A little further on we made another stop for a bathroom break. I love the tacky decor.

The amazing thing was that just behind that gas station was a huge field of blackberries that were just becoming ripe. There were no signs telling us to keep out or to leave the berries alone, and I must confess that we ate a few--not many, but a few. They were delicious.

The name "Redwood National and State Parks" is a little confusing. Abbreviated as RNSP, it is a complex of one national and three state parks on the northern California coast, together comprising 139,000 acres. The state parks were established in the 1920s, and the national park was established in 1968. 

Our first stop was at the Trillium Falls Trail in one of the state parks (Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park).

Wow, what an introduction to the Redwoods. We couldn't stop looking up, up, up towards that tops of the trees that seemed to be miles away.

It was especially fun to be there with our son Sam, for whom the trees are almost sacred beings. For him, this trip was a pilgrimage, and he was almost giddy on this first walk among the giants.

He works with trees, studies trees, reads about trees--the perfect companion for a trip to the Redwoods.

He was good at drawing our attention to things we might not have paid much attention to otherwise.

The eponymous Trillium Falls:

Ten of the groves are named for benefactors. 

The understory is just as exquisite as the trees.

I learned from Sam that this clover-looking plant with heart-shaped leaves is called redwood sorrel.

But while the understory was soothing and peaceful, our eyes were perpetually drawn to the dramatic heavens of Nature's Cathedral. 

Next stop: Fern Canyon, sheer canyon walls carved out of coastal bluffs formed by a retreating sea millions of years ago.

Makeshift bridges helped us keep our feet dry--more or less.

The ancestors of these ferns can be traced back 325 million years.

Again, the scale is overwhelming. Walking around in these forests made me feel a little like a Lilliputian in Gulliver's Travels. Note the small figures at the base of the photo below:

We continued up the trail to see more spectacular scenery.

Empty branches cover the lower two-thirds of a tree. It looks like something out of a horror movie--woody arms reaching out to snag you in the dark.

The interplay of light and shadow makes the forest a place of magic.

What forces have created this graceful curve?

We felt like youngsters among the ancients.

Our next stop was Gold Bluffs Beach.  Somewhere along the way we noted these warning signs. Don't bother the elk, Bob.

Having lived in California for over 37 years, we have felt many earthquakes, although never one on the beach.  This sign was a first for us.

Accessed by a dirt road, this is a pretty remote spot without a lot of tourists.  Looking left . . . 

. . . and then right--no people.

But even more surprising were the flowers growing in the coarse sand. One of nature's miracles.

The biggest surprise at Gold's Beach, however, had to have been this bouquet of red and white roses and pink lilies perched on the sand at the end of a driftwood log. What the heck?! If I were teaching a creative writing class, this would be my story prompt.

Next on the itinerary was the humorously named Big Tree.  Yes, there is actually a coast redwood with that name, and it happens to be the 13th largest coast redwood in the world.

While these are definitely big trees, they are not The Big Tree.

I love the shaggy bark of the coastal redwood. It could be Bigfoot's leg.

A tree growing on top of a fallen tree. Incredible.

Another fallen Titan.

We finally make it to The Big Tree. Here I am standing in front of it. It is 286 feet tall, 23.7 feet in diameter, 74.5 feet in circumference,  and about 1,500 years old. That definitely qualifies not just as "big," but as "Big."

Someone in the forestry department has a great sense of humor.

"What is man, that thou are mindful of him?"

Back in the car, we saw a few Roosevelt elk in some tall grass at the side of the road.

This feller is being stalked by at least two, maybe three more elk that are right behind him. Can you see their antlers poking out of the grass?

Next on the itinerary was a 10-mile jaunt along the Newton B. Drury Redwood Scenic Parkway. En route we passed a bridge guarded by a bear on each side of the road.

Gorgeous scenery.

Sam has always loved to climb trees, and he just couldn't help himself on several occasions.

We stopped to take a look at this cross.

Just to its right is a small cemetery.

It is fenced, so we couldn't wander among the well-tended graves.

Close-up photos of some of the graves, however, show them to relatively recent. This would be a nice place to visit a departed loved one, although it is a little out of the way.

We saw another bear pair of  bridge guardians, but these were painted gold. 

Big Foot didn't leave a review on Yelp, so we didn't stop.

Sweet peas growing wild alongside the road:

We followed the Coastal Drive for a few miles and enjoyed more breathtaking scenery.

We decided we needed just one more stroll on the beach, so we followed a path through a living tunnel, munching on wild berries along the way.

Have you see the old movie Lost Horizon? This was like emerging from the darkness into the bright light of Shangri-La.

On our way back to the car, the contrasting yellow-gold and purplish-pink flowers were gorgeous.

Even the non-blooming plants were exquisite. Sam pointed out this tree with a complex, dense branching system. So much to look at!

What an incredible day. This might be my favorite national/state park visit. I don't know if I have ever had a day so full of awe for the natural world, and it was especially memorable to see it with someone as knowledgeable and enthusiastic about trees as Sam is.

READING

Sam has been trying to get me to read the book The Overstory, written by Richard Powers, for a while. It is one of his favorite books. Bob and I belong to a couples book club, and when it was our turn to select the book for everyone to read, we decided we would give The Overstory a try. After all, it won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, and was a Notable or Best Book of the Year for many publications. We will be getting together (via Zoom) to discuss it in about a week, and I'm looking forward to hearing what the other members of our group have to say about it. 
Powers focuses on the stories of nine individuals, moving from one to another as the chapters progress. Each of the nine characters has some relationship to trees. Eventually, some of the characters' lives become entwined with others--much like the branches of trees in the overstory, or the roots underground, emphasizing the innate connectedness of living things. 

Some of the characters become environmental activists, and by the time I finished reading the book, I was ready to join them in their cause. The writing is very compelling.

Some of the story is set in the Pacific Northwest, and redwoods are another kind of character in the book, along with elms, maples, and other species. I read this book a few months after I had seen the ancient redwood giants for myself, and that made the book's message even more powerful.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben is the perfect book to be read before or after you read The Overstory because one of the main characters in The Overstory is a woman scientist studying the very material that is discussed in this book. 

Although there were times when this book was just too detailed, and other times when the author was just too emotional about trees, I have to admit that reading it reshaped my view of the natural world and the critical interconnectedness and amazing complexity that is part of it.  I’m convinced that trees have feelings, although a different type than we have, and that they communicate, although differently than we do.