Crescent City, CA - Walking With Titans

Are the Redwood trees tall? Does Nancy like chocolate? Yes, they are tall. they are stately and they are awesome. And they are here in Northern California. In fact, only 5% of the old-growth redwoods still exist today AND more than 95% of these are in northern California. Luckily, at least 80% of these old-growth trees are protected by State and National Parks. If they weren’t - well, we can all guess what might have happened to them and how many we’d still have left. As Joni Mitchell said:

                                                                ‘They took all the trees

                                                                And put them in a tree museum

                                                                And they charged all the people

                                                                A dollar and a half to see 'em

                                                                Don't it always seem to go

                                                                That you don't know what you've got

                                                                'Till it's gone

                                                                They paved paradise

                                                                And they put up a parking lot’

The original habitat of the Coast Redwood was 2,000,000 acres. Now we have 118,000 acres left. I’m sure hoping that we don’t have a parking lot in the works. Fossils show that relatives of today’s Coast Redwoods thrived during the Jurassic Era 160,000,000 years ago. They’ve existed along the north coast in California for 20 million years because the ever-present coastal fog meets 1/3 of their water needs. Big trees - big thirst. The ever-present rains provide the other 2/3’s. Unfortunately as temperatures increase and the coastal fog decreases, experts fear that the Coast Redwoods will be endangered. Into the museums like the pandas in the zoos.

Well, we didn’t have a tree museum, we had a marvelous hike among some of the Titans of the Redwoods. We had hiked among these largest of the Redwoods 2 years ago and wanted to hike there again this year. Such a treat and it’s special since not everyone knows where these special trees are. But, they are well-known enough to have names.

First a canopy picture. I get a crick in my neck trying to see the tops of these trees.

Sometimes the trail has to wind around some other trees that have fallen. Many fallen trees, we can just jump over but not when they are 8’ in diameter. I’ll just go around. But, it takes me 300’ out of my way.

Last time we took a picture of Gary with one of these, called the Screaming Titan, When we got back to the RV, we downloaded it and couldn’t believe our eyes at how massive it looked or - Gary even accused me, in jest, of photo shopping a midget picture of him along side an ordinary tree. Nope, that was what the camera saw, an ordinary human next to a massive tree. We actually didn’t think that any tree could be that big and went back the next day to confirm it. Yep, that tree was actually that big.

This year we took a picture of me next to the tree. And, yes, Gary must have photoshopped a midget picture of me next to an ordinary tree. Can you really believe that this tree is as big as it looks?

We then visited some of the other Titans for their pictures. Here’s another one.

Finally, we found one called Del Norte, note how massive its trunk is - and it goes almost straight up. Experts say that the wood of Del Norte could build 120 average-sized homes. Amazing. But, you’ll notice from our picture that this particular grove of trees isn’t as ‘secret’ as we thought, since we were able to get another person who was there to take our picture. Oh, well.

Can you see me here? I am actually in this picture. Luckily I wore my pink shirt or you’d never see me. Where’s Waldo?

We had some of our day left so we circled around, took another road, an iconic road, a road with ruts that almost swallowed our car and visited the Stout Grove, a much more well-known and thus, popular grove of Redwoods with a nice path taking you around and through the grove. Perfect.

Check out this root system of two trees that grew together - and fell together.

Nothing like a visit with Titans. But the rest of the forest is special too. Note these ferns.

And this moss dripping from each limb.


‘Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.’


                                        Steven Wright