 |
| Chase the cat relaxes on the dash as we drive to the Redwoods |
I have been nearly everyplace in California, save for the
far northwest corner of the state. It’s
hard to get there: You have to travel on smaller roads, which are winding and
often closed by landslides, and it’s rainy and cold much of the year.
 |
| Redwoods at dawn |
But Redwoods National Park is in that far corner, and I’ve
long wanted to see its empty coasts and wild forests. Since we were already in Oregon, it wasn’t so
far.
 |
| O'Brien, Oregon |
We traveled down I-5, and headed towards the coast on Route
199, stopping randomly at a RV park as it got dark. I found myself in O’Brien, Oregon, population
293 and home to my father’s fiancée, Donna.
My dad died suddenly from lymphoma back in 1993 before they could marry. Donna, a gentle and remarkably vibrant and
strong woman who was also one of the kindest people I’ve known, settled down
with Wayne and bought land in O’Brien.
They had twenty-some happy years there, bringing in a lovely trailer and
heading south in their mobile home during the winter. Donna died of COPD last year while we were
still in Spain, just weeks before Wayne succumbed to his pancreatic
cancer. I was amazed and sad to be in
O’Brien, and my thoughts were of Donna.
 |
| Serendipity at work |
In the morning we headed for the redwoods and were in
Jedediah Smith State Park by noon.
Redwoods National Park is a large concerted effort by both the federal
government and the State of California to preserve these last virgin stands of
the tallest trees on Earth. Once
redwoods covered two million acres on the northern Californian coast; now only
about 100,000 acres of old forest remain, less than 5%, and more than half of
this now is parkland.
 |
| Todd looks tiny! |
The story of the redwoods is yet another example of
Eurocentric hubris. Native peoples lived
here for thousands of years, but the first white men saw natural resources to
be exploited—first gold, and then lumber.
Redwoods were logged in the millions and sent south to the burgeoning
cities on the Gold-Rush California coast.
Much of San Francisco was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake using
redwood.
 |
| Redwood door |
Due to the redwood’s quick regrowth, the lumber seemed
easily renewable. It wasn’t until
relatively recently, in the late 1980s and 1990s, that biologists began
studying what was slowly recognized as, like the oceans, one of the last
undiscovered worlds: the redwood
canopy.
 |
| Redwood burls |
The redwood canopy was thought to be desert-like, with
little diversity and nothing much more than redwood crowns. When the first biologists climbed up the
ancient trees, they found astonishing things:
soils tucked into tree forks and hollowed-out nooks that had huckleberry
bushes and brush growing there. Small
bonsai versions of tanoak, spruce, and hemlock grew to several feet tall, and
salamanders crept in the damp duff. It
turns out there were more than 200 species of different organisms growing in a
single redwood crown.
 |
| No one realized what was living up there |
The lichens account for a great amount of biodiversity. A lichen (pronounced “liken,” I finally
learned) is a complex organism composed of an algae or cyanobacteria, which can
photosynthesize, growing symbiotically with a fungus. Each contributes to the other’s health. Most important to forest ecology, lichens are
one of the few organisms that can retrieve nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix
it into a solid that can be used by other plants. Redwood lichens in the canopy account for
some 10% of nitrogen-fixing in the redwood forest, which is astonishing, since
nitrogen-fixing usually happens at ground level.
 |
| An astonishing variety of plant life |
But such a diverse canopy comes at a steep price: it can
take 800 or 1000 years for a tree to become big enough to support such
variety. The loggers had no idea what
they were destroying when they removed 95% of the old-growth trees from the
last stands of what was once a continent-spanning redwood forest.
 |
| Even Cosmos the Cat liked the redwoods |
Redwoods are amazing trees.
Their bark is thick and tough, so they can withstand raging forest
fires. Many trees we saw had huge burn
marks, and even caves burned out in the interior, but a robust crown still
waved high overhead.
 |
| Unphased by fire |
When a redwood is cut, or anytime the cambium (the small
layer of cells between bark and wood, which transports the nutrients up the
tree) is exposed, the redwood has the ability to sprout new trees directly from
the cut. This ability gives rise to
fairy rings, where trees sprout out of cut stumps, creating circles of new growth. These grow into full-sized trees that can
create a cathedral-like appearance.
 |
| Trying to climb |
Another amazing fact is the redwood’s ability to tolerate
shade. A new tree will spring up in the
shadow of the parent tree and wait, spindly and patient, for a windstorm to
take down one of the giants. It can wait
for decades. Once exposed to light, it
will shoot up to take full advantage of its new photosynthetic powers.
 |
| Nurse logs like this one can provide a home for new redwoods to grow |
As part of their school, Tia and Sasha read The Wild Trees
by Richard Preston. A highly engaging
tale of the first biologists to explore the redwood canopy and climb up into
these 350-foot-plus monsters, it helped us appreciate the immensity and beauty
we were hiking through. A National
Geographic article about the first transect (exploration through the remaining
redwood stands on foot) helped us appreciate the balance necessary between
old-growth and economic concerns in the area.
 |
| Ferns sprout from the side of a redwood giant |
We hiked through multiple stands of old-growth forest at Jed
Smith Park, huddling one long morning in Karl the RV while rain poured down in
sheets. I insisted on hiking in the
drizzle that afternoon, as we had two umbrellas. It was glorious to be out in the rain, the
redwoods soaked and the sky grey, underscoring the rainforest nature of
redwoods.
 |
| Part of the fun |
We then headed for one night at Prairie Creek State
Park. Our beautiful little campsite was
on the creek, and the trails and trees were phenomenal. I kept trying to capture the grandeur on my iPhone,
knowing it was futile.
 |
| Chase the Cat on an exploration mission |
Our last hike was a 10-miler out to the beach through
old-growth forest and over multiple creeks.
The sun came out, lighting up the fog still hanging over the forest at 7
am. It was magical.
 |
| Out of the dark into the light |
The last part of the hike took us through Fern Canyon. We tromped down the stairs to the base of the
canyon to find the trail ending in the creek bed. Sasha forged ahead, braving the creek and
soaking her shoes when she missed a stepping stone. Huge logjams of 8- and 10-foot trunks blocked
our way, but we saw the telltale signs of shoes scrambling a path up and
over.
 |
| Where's the path? |
We took off our shoes to ford the creek. “Is there a trail?” Todd yelled at Sasha and me. He and Tia were hanging back a bit. Todd looked mad. “C’mon!”
I yelled back. “It’s really cool
up here! Beautiful!” Later, Tia told me, Todd grumbled, “This is
ridiculous! If there’s one more creek to
go over, I’m turning around!”
 |
| Heading downstream |
But he didn’t—his years of playing in Accotink Creek in
Virginia as a kid kicked back in—and on we went through a stunning steep-walled
canyon, the sides rising 50 feet and covered with ferns of all kinds. We gave up and just soaked our shoes, walking
back and forth through the creek in the freezing water. The beauty of the place was thoroughly worth
it.
 |
| Todd takes the plunge |
We had lunch on the beach, the only people in sight some
researchers laying down grids to map life forms. The sand was a dark grey, the ocean churning
after the storm, the sun warm, and nothing but forest, beach, and sea forever. It was magical. The Hidden Coast is an apt
nickname for this part of the world.
 |
| Stunning solitude |
We hiked back to Karl, sloshing back through Fern Canyon and
weaving in and out of the redwood giants.
Our RV trip was nearly finished, and this was an astonishing and
educative last hike for all of us.
 |
| Heading back to Karl |
