It is almost absolutely silent. I sit down on a fallen redwood log and listen. I hear my own breathing. And a woodpecker somewhere far off to my right and what may be some frogs from a direction I can’t pinpoint. A squirrel chitters and a small bird of some kind chips. And all around me are the Trees.

It can be difficult to absorb the immensity of the ancient trees in Redwood National and State Parks under any circumstance, but doing so from the seat of a car is near-impossible. Fortunately, the coastal California park will offer four opportunities, starting Saturday, for visitors to enjoy the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park without the noise of cars and trucks.

A popular attraction in Washington, D.C. is the World War II Memorial, but the nation's largest memorial to World War II veterans is located on the opposite side of the country—in a unit of Redwood National and State Parks. In 1949, five thousand acres of old-growth redwoods were dedicated as the National Tribute Grove to honor those vets, but over the years that designation had been largely forgotten. That's now changed, and the Grove was rededicated in a ceremony late last month.

Law enforcement agents in California have arrested a man in connection with cutting burls off the trunks of redwood trees in Redwood National and State Parks.