Don't Call Me Ishmael: Redwood dreams

Grizzly Creek Redwoods

Call it big tree fever. Once the mind arrives on the coastal redwoods as a destination, no substitute exists. I ran the distances. My short trip to northern California could have only one signature destination. Although Lassen Volcanic National Park sits just 90 minutes from Chico, the Lassen Highway still sat under several feet of snow and would not open until Memorial Day. I wanted more from Lassen than just a visitor center stamp stop. A four-hour drive to the northwest would take us to the Pacific and more importantly, those tall trees. At that point, only the coast redwoods would suffice.

Not that the ride between Chico and the coast was easy. Only a handful of roads connect Interstate 5 to California’s Redwood Coast. I expected mountains but not the remote country that arises quickly west of Red Bluff and Redding. The interstate lies in the Central Valley and the Cascades rush in. Lassen Peak is the southernmost volcano in the range, with another volcano, 14’er Mount Shasta, visible father north.

The first of many mountain passages

The two routes we took over the high country, California routes 36 and 299, had stretches of steep cliumbs and descents, mountain-hugging curves, climbs above turquoise rivers, and stretches of emptiness. Heavily forested, these mountains bore the scars of wildfires and the dead, gray thatches of trees killed by pine beetle infestations. Every turn boasted wild scenery. Wildlife was scarce, with only a handful of deer and many birds of prey. Route 299 had its own run of 50 miles without services, but boasted more towns due to its long run alongside the South Fork of the Trinity River. Fifty miles of winding on bluffs above the Trinity, which has pristine waters and major whitewater drops was just as taxing.

Within 30 miles of Fortuna we began seeing the first sizable redwoods. They grow elsewhere in these mountains, but not to the astonishing heights they hit on the coast. Even at smaller heights, their trunks are remarkably clear of branches and the tops always have a similar look. At Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Parks, the giant trees took root. It’s hard to shake the feel of Endor, the forest moon from Return of the Jedi, when in their presence.

At Grizzly Creek this feeling was no coincidence, since it was a filming site for the movie. I rolled down the window and the smell of old-growth redwood forest entered. The soft forest floors of ferns and millennia of pine needles and cones mingles with the wood of the living giants. Because redwood canopies can blot out most sunlight, only ferns and other low-light plants thrive at their bases.

A one-lane section of Route 36 stopped traffic in Grizzly Creek. No one seemed to mind. We stopped for 20-plus minutes, so I left the car and stepped closer to the forest. As always, I had to touch the redwoods – without physical contact, they feel too large to be alive. A tree across from the car had a gaping hole in its base, likely from a lightning strike, but continued to live, its branches starting several hundred feet above the road. I planned to pose in the gap but the ground off the road was so soft and rich with plant matter that I just posed at a distance. But we were here, and the redwoods would stay omnipresent for the next 24 hours.

We should consider ourselves lucky that some large forests still remain. By the time protections began with the first state redwood parks a century ago, loggers removed 85 percent of the 4-million-acre grove of redwoods that once ruled the Pacific Coast from the southern Bay area up to far southeastern Oregon. Lack of a deepwater port on this portion of the coast delayed commerce’s discovery of the miracle redwood, which is resistant to insects, rot, and fire.

While some logging continues, the California coast has dozens of preserves, parks at all government levels, and other protections for the coastal redwoods. Although closed to the public, the southernmost redwood preserve lies in Big Sur on the Central Coast, Redwoods can grow elsewhere but only in this stretch do the trees grow taller than any others Giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada don’t grow as tall but have wider, denser trunks, making them the world’s largest trees). The northermost groves lies just across the Oregon border.

Nourished by the dense Pacific fog and the cool climate, the coastal redwoods peak around 370 feet. At this point we had reached massive Humboldt County, best known in popular culture for its marijuana associations (in the 1990s, a “Humboldt 420” sticker on a car was a great way to encourage a police stop). Forty percent of all remaining old-growth redwoods stand in Humbold, which spans more than 110 miles of the California coast. The lack of a deep-water port kept away heavy settlement, with the shallow waters of Humboldt and Arcata bays not overly attractive until white settlers discovered the enviable traits of redwoods – fire and bug resistant, North of Eureka, near the roadside town of Orick, the largest area of protected trees arrives.

Redwood National and State Parks jointly administers three California state parks (Jedediah Smith Redwoods, Prairie Creek Redwoods, and Del Norte Coast Redwoods) with national parkland that unites them into one massive preserve. The park protects the largest-known redwoods, as well as dozens of miles of ocean beach, and other features such as scenic foothill overlooks such as the one above the mouth of the Klamath River, where marine wildlife is often spotted. This is the territory of the Yurok people, one of California’s largest remaining Native tribes. Further inland on the Yurok reservation, dam removals on the Klamath River might help restore the native salmon populations, or at least that is the hope.

The Redwood Highway condenses into a narrow winding road in spots, with giant redwoods just feet off the road. The log cabin Kuchel Visitor Center at the park complex’s south end sits along a series of beach dunes. On this afternoon, the center lost power and only offered minimal services. But Prairie Creek Redwoods were a short drive north, and that made for a sublime trip into the rolling hills where redwoods grow.

Named for an early park service director, the Newton B. Drury Parkway, one of the great drives in any national park. A loop off 101, the peaceful drive takes visitors into the heart of the redwood forest, where the trees are thicker and more majestic. The Roosevelt elk that live around Prairie Creek did not appear this afternoon, not that I expected many at that hour. Just standing in this august group of trees, some 2,000 years old and blotting out daylight, remained a treasure. Changes in climate might reduce the coastal fog and redwoods might not tower so high in the future.

The afternoon ended with a departure from the redwoods and a walk along the beach. Redwoods don’t grow directly on the ocean due to the salty sea mist, giving the national park a series of impressive beaches. At several points I encountered driftwood, an unexpectedly large trunk bleached by the sun. It was probably not redwood, since the coastal climate makes all the trees larger here. But it made for a fine vantage point of the Pacific, nearby sea mounts, and ocean breeze pushing sand across U.S. 101.