Redwood Park, CA
Redwood Park, California.
Big trees. Really big trees. The biggest are 300+ feet tall, and up to 22 feet across (though most in the forest are more like up to 15 feet across and 200 feet tall) and there’s forests of these things! You don’t realize how big the trees are until you get out of the vehicle and stand next to one, then turn around and look at the truck parked next to another one and then feel like an ant.
The first night here we camped at one of the network of state parks in a campsite that had two redwood trees in it, (one of which was 10-12 across) with just enough space between them to back the truck into. A very unique campsite.
Next morning we hiked a couple short trails to old groves of redwoods, the first one was awesome, the second was better. When you’re walking on one of these trails, you notice that the trees are really big, but after a while walking through them you also notice that everything else is larger than normal. eg: the ferns, the clovers, both at least twice the size you would normally expect. The ferns routinely reached 5-6 feet tall!
In the afternoon we drove from the Northern park where we’d been so far, to the Southern park and hiked a trail there. This trail was even better than the earlier two, with more huge trees along it. Then, near the end of the trail we encountered a bull elk with a really big rack, by my count it was at least 12 points, maybe more. It was just off the trail eating blackberries, about 30 feet from us. Really cool seeing it that close, and the first large animal I’ve seen on this trip.
I have taken a bunch of pictures of the redwoods, but they don’t really show the size of them. You have to stand next to them and look up, which is disorienting, to actually appreciate how massive they are.
Tags: Travel, USA
Adam
What a gorgeous animal! Keep it away from Sarah Palin please.
I could have done without the tree fungus, though. :P