Advertisement
Coastal Redwoods
Redwoods along US 199 near Jedediah Smith Redwood State ParkToday, I head for
California, one of the most mythic places in the country, if not the world.
The state has always represented miraculous opportunity, from the gold rush of the 1850s to the movie industry of the 1920s to internet entrepreneurs of today.
The list of superlatives is long; the one I love is that the
state GDP ranks among the ten largest COUNTRIES of the world.
This is one big state.
Smith River Canyon
From southern Oregon, there are two main ways into California.
The first is the drive along I 5, which I saw three days ago after rafting (see
What Ancient Words Mean in a Modern Age).
The other is US 199 which my guidebook describes as narrow, twisty, and difficult.
The description is accurate.
The highway starts in the Rouge River Valley, goes over Hazel View Summit, and then follows the Smith River canyon to the northern California Coast.
The early stretch is straightforward by this point, rolling over slowly rising hills with lots of pine trees.
It then reaches what I can only call a “
produce customs booth”.
Even more than Florida (see
Golden Swamps), California makes an incredible amount
1980 Coastal Redwood
A coastal redwood planted in 1980 of money from agriculture.
In fact, the state produces more of some plants than anywhere else on earth.
State authorities are justifiably paranoid about pests.
Every vehicle is forced to stop at these booths.
Carry anything organic, and prepare for a search.
Cars that recently passed through areas with known pests probably get searched anyway.
After the booth, the troubles started.
I encountered a long line of cars stopped on the road.
The only sign was for a tunnel.
US 199 is a popular road.
As it turns out, the state is currently widening it.
The long line was for the tunnel, which was closed for construction.
Finally, the police opened the tunnel and let people through.
After the tunnel, the road quickly drops into a narrow canyon.
It follows the canyon through endless curves, and parts are steep.
This stretch revealed one of the nasty side effects of the construction, as all cars were now in a tight pack.
We all drove the speed of the slowest car, which on a mountain road is about
1980 Giant Sequoia
A giant sequoia planted in 1980 the speed of a snail.
Thankfully, the lead car eventually figured this out and pulled over to let people pass.
Equally thankfully, this stretch was on road that was already widened, so it was quite safe.
The highway gets less safe soon enough, when it reaches the end of the new pavement.
Now, it’s crammed between the river and the canyon wall, barely two cars wide.
Trees and the occasional house sit right next to the pavement.
Endless tight curves complete the picture.
This road is great to look at, at least.
The situation continues until it gets near the coast and the valley widens.
Jedediah Smith Redwoods
Close to the coast, the vegetation changes.
Until now, the scenery had been the typical pine trees of the west, cedars, firs and so forth.
Rather abruptly, they are replaced by incredibly tall trees with rutted red bark.
Some of them are huge.
These, of course, are the famous
coast redwoods, the tallest trees in the world.
I have reached
Jedediah Smith Redwoods, one of a series of state parks that protect old growth redwood
1980 Dawn Redwood
A dawn redwood planted in 1980 forests.
My first stop in the park was
Hiouchi Ranger Station, which contains a museum on
redwood ecology.
Redwoods evolved during the Cretaceous Period, before the dinosaurs, making them one of the oldest tree species on earth.
At the time, Earth’s climate was hot and humid, and the trees were found all over (see the Yellowstone fossil forest,
Welcome to Wonderland).
Over time, the planet became colder and drier.
The trees migrated to the only place still able to support them, the coastal mountains of northern California.
These mountains still have the ample fog the trees need to survive.
Environmentalists are very concerned that global warming will reduce the fog, which will ensure these giants become extinct.
The redwood family covers
three species, one of which is the coastal redwood.
The second is the giant sequoia.
The third is the dawn redwood, whose natural range is restricted to remote mountains in China.
Ironically, more people have probably seen the dawn redwood in person than any other.
When western explorers discovered the tree in the 1944, they noticed it did quite well in cold rainy climates.
Howland Hill Road
Howland Hill Road slips between old growth redwoods It has since been planted in gardens worldwide.
A picnic area next to the ranger station contains three trees that look really out of place.
The trees are one of each member of the redwood family, all planted in 1980.
The coastal redwood is tall and thin.
The sequoia is shorter and wider.
The dawn redwood looks tinier than either.
Howland Hill Road
The place to get close to the trees in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is along
Howland Hill Road.
Unlike some scenic drives, this road is a narrow dirt track.
It crosses the Smith River on a covered bridge and then twists through ravines on the far side.
The drive must be done slowly.
Most people take it slowly anyway, because huge coastal redwoods sit right next to the road.
In places, it squeezes between pairs of them.
I can’t imagine what most people see on this drive, since all the best scenery is directly overhead!
That wasn’t a problem for me 😊
Roughly halfway through, the drive reaches the trailhead for
Stout Grove, the most
Howland Hill Road
Old growth redwoods tower over Howland Hill Road popular hike in the park.
The trail goes through a redwood grove next to the river.
Immensely tall trees reach far over the trail, blocking the sunlight.
The only undergrowth is ferns.
Several trees had odd black recesses at their bases.
These are the result of forest fires.
Old growth redwood bark is essentially fireproof, so the tree can burn at its base and survive.
If the fire reaches the top of the tree, however, it will die.
Despite the look, this forest is younger than true old growth.
A ranger along the trail explained the difference.
This particular grove is located on the Smith River flood plain.
Every few hundred years, a huge flood will rip out the trees and deposit a huge amount of rich soil.
New redwoods quickly colonize the open space and recreate the forest.
Due to the sunlight, these trees grow quickly with wide tree rings.
These big rings spread out the resin that makes redwood wood both rot resistant and water proof.
In a truly old forest, trees struggle to find sunlight and create tiny
Stout Grove
Old growth redwoods along the Stout Grove trail rings filled with resin.
The ranger had wood samples that illustrate the difference.
This difference becomes really important for redwood timber.
In the 1800s, lumbermen cut over 90%!o(MISSING)f the redwood forests in California to build houses.
The wood was in high demand due its unusual properties.
These days, cutting old growth redwood would likely get people lynched (more on that later).
The redwood wood sold these days mostly comes from second growth forest, where the trees grew quickly in plenty of sunlight.
This wood is no better than commercial wood found elsewhere, except for its red color.
The scenic drive finally reached the coast, and I headed south.
I drove US 101, the same scenic road found along the Oregon coast (see
Oregon Pacific).
Like Oregon, it passed empty beaches alternating with rocky headlands.
Unlike Oregon, much of the hills were covered in redwood trees.
I got to see the fog the trees need for myself along this drive, rolling off the ocean in waves.
While driving over headlands, the trees now disappeared into the grey air.
In
Smith River
The Smith River along the Stout Grove trail one stretch, the road passed through a swamp and then over a wide river.
The view upstream showed a narrow valley between the mountains.
This is the mouth of the Klamath, the same river I rafted three days ago.
Prairie Creek Redwoods
After the Klamath, the road enters
Prairie Creek Redwoods, another state park protecting redwoods.
This park has its own scenic drive, which is paved.
A sign along the way points to this park’s best known feature, the ‘Big Tree’.
At first, I thought this was odd, since all redwood trees are big.
Then I thought it looked odd because the trees next to the sign were about as large as the others in this forest.
I finally figured out the sign refers to the turnoff just down road, which quickly leads to a parking lot.
A
short hike from here finally reveals the tree in question.
This coastal redwood is not the tallest in California, but it may be the largest, with a width more often seen in sequoias.
It is also considerably larger than the redwoods that surround it, so its size stands out more than most.
Del Norte Beach
Del Norte Beach, north of Klamath, showing hills covered in redwoods and fog My experience here was the opposite of my other hike, just one enormous tree and tiny hikers at its base.
After the big tree, the road leaves the redwood forests and enters Eureka.
The largest city in the area, it has the expected sprawl.
After the beauty of the forests, this is rather depressing.
After an hour of traffic, the redwood trees finally reappeared.
Along the way, the road passes the
Trees of Mystery, one of many private redwood attractions.
In this one, people pay money to wander around unusual looking trees.
It’s worth a quick stop just for the huge statues of
Paul Bunyan and Blue Ox outside the entrance, although I skipped the walk.
Maxxam vs. Environmental Activists
Further south, the road swings away from the coast and into the Eel River Valley.
This valley has perfect conditions for redwood trees, lots of winter rain and summer fog.
The trees grow denser here than almost anywhere else, making it the heart of redwood country.
In the middle of the valley sits the town of
Scotia, which is to redwood forests what Lead, South Dakota was
The Big Tree
The 'Big Tree' redwood, one of the widest redwood trees in existence to gold mining (see
Gold Fever), a true company town.
The vast sawmill complex on the south end of town, the largest redwood mill in the world, makes that clear enough.
The story of Scotia, in fact, encapsulates the story of Californians’ relationship with redwood trees in a nutshell.
It starts with A. W. McPherson, who founded Scotia as a lumber camp in 1863.
He cut trees and sold the wood to make houses.
His lumber ultimately built most of pre-earthquake San Francisco.
He was successful enough that the company he founded, Pacific Lumber, ultimately owned the entire valley.
Starting in the late 1890s, California citizens became concerned that the activities of Pacific Lumber and other lumber barons were destroying a priceless heritage.
They formed the
Save the Redwoods League in 1918 to buy old growth redwood groves and donate them to the state as parks.
Eventually, the state started contributing funds of its own.
The league was partially successful in their efforts, creating a
string of parks throughout redwood country.
The steep odds they faced are apparent from the fact that their efforts still only saved 10%!o(MISSING)f
Fallen logs
Fallen redwood trees along the Big Trees trail the original old growth.
The Redwood League worked relatively quietly until the mid 1980s, when an event happened that forced many Californians to decide what they would be willing to do for trees.
The 1980s was the decade of junk bond financed corporate raiders.
They sold huge amounts of risky debt, used the proceeds to buy companies whose stock price did not reflect the value of the assets they owned, dismembered the companies to raise cash, hopefully paid off the debt, and made a healthy profit.
The people whose livelihoods they upended were treated mostly as collateral damage.
In 1986 one of those raiders Charles Hurwitz, owner of a group called Maxxam,
set his sights on Pacific Lumber.
The company had followed sustainable forestry practices for a century, ensuring a steady supply of trees to cut.
It also owned the only remaining old growth redwoods in private hands.
The value of those trees was worth far more than the value of the stock.
After a hostile and brutal battle,
Maxxam acquired Pacific Lumber.
The first thing the new owners did was canceling the company’s pension plan and used
Redwood cathedral
A redwood cathedral, a group of trees growing close together, on the Big Tree trail the proceeds to pay off debt.
They then formulated a plan to clear cut the remaining old growth.
Local residents found out about it when the company applied for needed permits.
Environmentalists began a desperate struggle to save the trees, and redwood country residents had to decide what they really valued.
The battle had the tone of a
religious crusade.
On one side were people for whom the trees were something spiritual, whose true value far transcended mere economics.
On the other side, at least nominally, were people who saw the trees as a source of income and a livelihood, who had worked as timber men for their entire lives.
Hurwitz’s values were quite clear on the subject; his
rare press interviews showed that he viewed redwood trees the same way he viewed junk bonds, as an economic asset to be used to enrich Maxxam as much as possible.
At the battle’s height, the valley witnessed
daily protests and some activists even climbed up old growth trees and
lived there.
In the end, Maxxam died by junk bonds much as it had lived by them.
All those bonds required
Paul Bunyan
A famous piece of redwood country kitsch, the Paul Bunyan statue outside the Trees of Mystery considerable interest payments.
Fighting
lawsuits and other maneuvers by environmentalists added both delay and expense.
It took fifteen years, but Maxxam ultimately
sold most of its old growth groves to the state of California and the federal government to settle the lawsuits.
Along the way, they still managed to clear cut much of the second growth forest.
This wasn’t enough to pay off the debt, so Maxxam sent Pacific Lumber into
bankruptcy court in 2007.
Hundreds of workers watched the only jobs they had ever known, once the most stable that ever existed, evaporate.
Pacific Lumber, and Scotia, is struggling to return to greatness but has a long way to go.
One irony worth noting: Maxxam’s efforts ultimately caused more old growth to be protected than if they hadn’t gotten involved.
Pacific Lumber and other timber owners steadily cut old growth trees before 1986, but they did so slowly and quietly.
Maxxam’s clear cutting did it quickly enough to provoke a major activist response, ensuring the issue high visibility.
At this point, all old growth redwood groves, except those containing few trees, are on protected public land.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.538s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 38; qc: 104; dbt: 0.3471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
