Redwoods. Stately. Old. Majestic. There are no adequate adjectives. It’s impossible to take a photo of them. No camera’s viewfinder can possibly contain their height. I’m alone but even if there was someone with me, we probably wouldn’t be speaking. This is my first time among the Great Trees and the feeling inside me is one that’s impossible to describe.

But I’ll bet almost everyone who reads this site regularly knows exactly what I’m talking about because it’s common in many places protected by the Arrowhead. Somehow, though, in this shaded forest of superlatives, the feeling is even more moving than usual.

I drove out of Crescent City early on a Sunday morning and headed east along Howland Hill Road toward the town of Hiouchi. A comment in a guidebook I picked up in town had caught my eye when it described Howland Hill Road: “A trip past Crescent City’s industrial parks, junkyards, and casino will drop you trap-door like onto Howland Hill Road, a portal to the eternal shade and calm of coastal redwoods, which wends around these giants, over cold clear streams and through a fern-laden primeval landscape.”

The guidebook continues: “This unpaved but reasonably maintained road passes by numerous trailheads. Motorhomes and trailers are not advised.” But if you’re driving a passenger car or small RV, this is a road you don’t want to miss. In places, it squeezes between giant Trees standing like pairs of huge gateposts. They fill your windshield and make it hard to stop looking long enough to keep your rig on the road. The pavement stops short and then it’s pretty well-graded gravel.

Road dust covers just about everything along road corridors in the park/Lee Dalton

On both sides of the road are beds of large ferns. Then I notice something. The ferns are not green. They appear gray or almost dead. Then I catch on. It’s dust. I stop and climb out of my truck. A thick layer of road dust coats everything. I walk back into the woods about 50 feet and the dust keeps going. I look up and see that the bottom 50 feet of bark on trees has that same grayish-brown covering. It takes several drops of spit to get enough to wipe the dust away and reveal that ferns really are green in there.

I think some nasty thoughts about drivers who must come blasting through the road trailing clouds behind them. It’s some time later when I notice that my own truck is pulling a brown contrail behind it. I look at my speedometer. It’s right at the ten mark.

I repent of my nasty thoughts and wonder if anyone has studied effects of this thick coat of crud on ferns and other things that should be green. I hate pavement in places like this, but wonder now if this is not a place where some asphalt might really be needed.

When I stop to hike along the trail to Boy Scout Tree, I notice that dust finally disappears after about 50 yards or so. From then on along the trail it’s only silence and green with huge brown trunks standing everywhere. Wildflower season is pretty well gone and the few that remain are worn out. But the old-growth forest floor is a welter of understory plants. Ferns predominate, but here and there I spot a big-leaf maple. Along the roadside there were oaks scattering acorns on the road. Duff, accumulated forest litter beneath my feet, is soft and springy if I step off the trail. It’s like walking on a pillow. A pillow that serves to absorb water to nourish all that live upon it.

Motoring among the big trees along Howland Hills Road/Luke Dalton

Redwood roots are surprisingly shallow. They extend only about 30 feet down and spread out to intertwine with roots of other trees. This comingling of roots helps stabilize all of them. It would be almost impossible to travel through these forests of dense undergrowth and fallen big trees and branches. I read later that Jedediah Smith recounted in his journal that he and his men thought they were going to be marooned in the redwoods because their horses couldn’t pass until exhausted men with axes had cut trails for them.

As I reach the parking spot on my way out, I finally begin to meet some other people. It’s probably going to be a busy day. It’s nearly nine in the morning.

I stop at Stout Grove and hike its short trail. It’s crowded here because the grove is only a short distance from a highway. You can hear traffic noise. But I notice that everyone I meet walks nearly silently. There’s a hush. Reverence. Mostly we just nod to one another. Greetings without speaking. Without breaking the awesomeness of this place.

It’s not until I reach the parking area again that reverence is broken by a man shouting into a cell phone. He’s using the speaker and you can also hear the voice of the person on the other end. I want to whack him with my hiking stick and ask why he can’t wait for somewhere better to begin planning his Marine corps reunion.

But I don’t. After all, according to some folks, that would be dictating how someone else must enjoy the parks we share. Can’t do that. Not politically correct. So I don’t. Besides, some people would probably be doing the same thing in the Sistine Chapel.

I ask a ranger later about dust along the road and she explains that it’s an historic stagecoach route. Its lack of pavement, she says, is also a deterrent to heavier use of the area. In her words, “Gravel is a pretty good way to prevent overuse.” She doesn’t know if any studies have been done regarding dust on roadside plants, but points out that they seem to be doing just fine despite their gray coating. Fall and winter rains will soon be here, too. So now I can feel a little better about hating asphalt.

I can tell that the entire countryside throughout northern California and parts of Oregon I’ve traveled are awfully dry. But one saving grace for redwood country comes from almost daily heavy fog throughout summer. Warm air from land flows out over cold ocean and then is blown back overland. It condenses on everything it touches and much of it drips to the forest floor. It moistens delicate redwood foliage and helps it survive rainless summer days.

It’s also why a foghorn somewhere not far south of Crescent City sounds its mournful call every ten seconds of the day and night. As I listen to it from my campsite, it’s not bothersome. Instead it’s somehow comforting and reassuring.

A Bit of History

I sort of remember the battles back in the '50s and '60s over establishment of Redwood National Park. They were as ferocious as any that might be needed today. At one time, there were about 2 million acres of old growth redwoods. By about 1920 nearly 80 percent of that had been logged by clearcutting. The last of the redwoods were falling fast.

Logging redwoods had gotten off to a slow start. At first, the great trees had been somewhat protected simply because their enormous size stymied loggers. But by the early 1900s, steam power and advances in technology began to make harvesting these enormous trees possible. Redwoods shattered upon landing after felling, so loggers had to precisely determine exactly where a tree would land and prepare a soft bed of small branches and loose soil. Then a crew of about ten or 15 skilled axmen and sawyers went to work. It could take nearly a month to drop a really big one.

Temporary railroad tracks were often built on logging roads and by the 1920s new caterpillar tractors and power saws made the process much faster. A single 16-foot section of a tree was all that could be hauled on each railcar to the mill. Devastation was complete when loggers finished with one area and moved to another.

Happily, there were at least a few influential people who were horrified by that state of affairs and they founded an organization to Save the Redwoods in 1918. Save the Redwoods League raised large sums of money. Enough, in fact, to purchase land to donate for three state parks. These donated lands produced Jedediah Smith, Del Norte Coast, and Prairie Creek Redwoods state parks.

Numerous proposals were floated to establish a national park as early as 1879, but none succeeded in face of resistance by logging interests. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that enough money was raised to begin some serious efforts on a national scale. National Geographic Society led the way with a donation of $64,000 to fund a survey of remaining old-growth redwoods. The shocking results of that survey, which revealed that of the estimated original two million acres, only about 15 percent or 300,000 acres of virgin timber remained. Only 50,000 of those were protected in state parks.

Coastal fog rolls in on the national park/Lee Dalton

To make a very long story short enough to tell here, Save the Redwoods League (led by a future NPS director named Newton B. Drury), the National Geographic Society, and others managed to stir up enough national rage to push Congress into action. Finally, in 1968, Congress acted and President Lyndon Johnson signed the act authorizing addition of 58,000 acres of land surrounding the three state parks. This land was a much needed buffer between protected state lands and land that remained open to loggers’ saws.

Even so, it still wasn’t enough and another national effort was made to add even more land to the national park. Despite stiff opposition from local lumber interests, Congress expanded the park yet again and this time President Carter signed legislation in 1978 that added 48,000 acres of private land that was donated. Yet only about one-half of all remaining old growth redwoods remaining in the world are protected now by either state or national park status. About 36,000 acres of national park land have been logged and must be restored.

As recently as 2002, Save the Redwoods League was still working and purchased another 25,000 acres to add to the state parks. But much of this land is second-growth forest that will take a long time to return to anything similar to old growth forest.

I stayed a couple of nights in Mill Creek campground on lands in Del Norte Coast state park. It is second-growth forest. It was logged prior to the 1920s. Thus it has had a good chance to recover. Trees in the campground are already about 100 feet tall, but lack the massive diameters of old trees. It’s easy to see that they are all about the same age. The campground is studded with massive stumps that bear mute witness to the slaughter of the ancient forest here. Clumps of newer trees often grow from stumps in impressive fairy rings of what are called “family trees.” Family trees are actually clones of their fallen ancestor. There’s an understory of big leaf maple and some other smaller trees mixed with a few Douglas fir here and there. The forest is recovering in Mill Creek, but it has a long way to go.

A Different Way to Manage Parks

About the only way to tell if you are in state or national park is by signs at the road or trailhead. The official name of the place is Redwood National and State Parks. Rangers wearing arrowheads are side-by-side with their compadres who wear the round patch of California’s state parks. It was NPS rangers who checked me into my campsite at Mill Creek in Del Norte Coast State Park. When I stopped at the information center at park headquarters in downtown Crescent City, one young lady wore NPS duds and the other was a state park ranger.

The headquarters building itself may even be a symbol of this division of duties. There are two identical buildings located across the street from one another. But spanning the road is a bridgeway that connects them. The parks’ newsletter contains a traditional superintendents’ welcome – with two signatures: Brett Silver, superintendent of the state parks, and Steve Prokop of the NPS park.

I asked one of the young NPS rangers at the Mill Creek campground entrance how the two agencies get along. He gave me a strange look and replied, “Well, just fine. We’re all doing the same job.” Later, I ask another NPS ranger why the Park Service is operating and maintaining Mill Creek if it’s located on state park land. It’s because California had been planning to close the campground, so NPS leadership asked to take over. Good thing, because public campgrounds are a rarity here.

From all I could see, it appears that there’s a very good symbiotic relationship between the two agencies.

An Overdose of Awesome?

Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this, but I think it’s possible to suffer from something that might be called Superlative Saturation Syndrome. After driving many miles on highways, byways, and hiking a bunch of miles on a bunch of trails, I think I may have hit some kind of wall. With probably something like 240,000 photos of tall trees, taller trees, and even bigger trees on my camera’s memory card, I needed something else. (And I haven’t even mentioned all the traveling I did along some mighty spectacular coastline. Only about 25,000 photos of that, though.)

I’d heard of some interesting things to see and do in Crescent City. I found my way to the local historical museum. Like many hometown museums, it’s not very polished or professional. In fact, it’s downright amateurish. But that’s part of the charm of places like that. They reflect a long labor of love by local people who are eager to share that place they call home with those who are just wandering by.

The museum is filled with stories of native people; seafarers; loggers; shipwrecks; the 1964 tsunami from Alaska that devastated most of the city; and a lot more. When you visit Crescent City, go take a look.

Just be careful. There’s so much to see here in redwood country that it needs time. Lots of time.

Oh, and be sure you take some good liniment. You’ll need it for the stiff neck you’ll get from so much looking up and up and up and up.

And finally one more story of one more highlight of my stay at Redwoods National and State Parks . . . .

William and Ranger Carey Wells/Courtesy photo from William's parents

Big Dreams and Little Boys

Everywhere I go, I love to meet people. I do a lot of people watching. Keep your eyes and ears open and sometimes serendipity drops right on top of you. One of those moments landed in early afternoon on September 11 at the Big Tree Wayside where I met a ranger named Carey Wells and a future ranger named William.

I was just walking along minding my own business – sort of, at least – when I spotted them. This, I suddenly realized, was something worth slowing down for and I soon was unabashedly eavesdropping. Ranger Wells was answering questions about rangering and parks. William was wearing an official looking name tag and a real summer Stetson minus its leather USNPS band. The hat was a gift from a retired ranger who had met William. Under his jacket was a gray shirt with state and national park patches all carefully placed right where they need to be.

Carey was explaining uniform standards and how she and other rangers prepare for interpretive programs or work to enforce regulations. They talked of challenges in educating visitors to keep clean camps and of trying to protect endangered creatures like the marbled murrelet. It was a conversation that flipped from topic to topic at the speed of a fifth-grade attention span.

William was telling her about some of the challenges he faces as “lead ranger” in his own park. It seems that William’s entire backyard is his very own park. His mother explained that it’s staffed by neighborhood kids, filled with interpretive signs, and crisscrossed by trails. He even showed us an official park brochure with a black band across the top of the front page and a map in the middle. His mother didn’t say so, but I’m willing to bet there’s even a campground behind the garage and a fire lookout in the top of a tree somewhere.

It was instantly obvious that this just-turned-eleven boy was one mighty sharp kid with an imagination even bigger than the Stetson on his head. Back in the parking lot, Carey bid William and his family farewell and went back to answering mundane visitor questions about trees and restrooms. William’s mother said that he had contacted Carey by email and she had met them just to spend a couple of hours giving one little boy an experience he certainly won’t soon forget.

Back in my own camp this evening I got to wondering. Wondering if Ranger Wells had just been wasting precious taxpayer money spending so much time and effort on behalf of one little boy with a huge imagination. There is only one answer to that question:

Absolutely not!

After all, isn’t that exactly the reason the NPS exists? To conserve, unimpaired, for future generations? I sit here typing and find myself wondering where the future will take our parks, and William, and my granddaughters. Who knows? Maybe William will some day be the chief ranger of a real park with real trails and real interpreters and a real brochure. Maybe my great grandkids will be among his visitors.

Yet dreams change. Perhaps his life and grownup reality will take him in different directions. But no matter. I know only one thing for sure tonight. Carey’s hours were not wasted. She was spending them on the future and what better investment can any of us make?

She was planting seeds.