The Redwoods

We spent a few days exploring some very amazing woods in northern California. These giant redwoods are the stuff of fantasy, and played a backdrop for the Star Wars and Jurassic Park films. Luckily we didn't meet any giant venom-spitting lizards during our visit. 

In the summer these forests are cloud forests, harvesting most of their moisture directly from the mist and dripping it from branches to the forest floor below.

Exploring in places like this really develops your neck flexibility. Wearing a broad-brimmed hat doesn't really work, because as you tip back your head to take it all in, it just hits your backpack and falls off.

They are like slow motion clouds

Each tree a billowing cumulonimbal tower

Deep green skyscape

Minutes are decades here

They burgeon upward and outward in the moist air

Some fall to earth and gently disintegrate

Their space is taken up by their neighbours

And, delicately above the reddish forest floor

New wisps of greenery are born. 

The soft green silence is punctuated by the croak of ravens and the twittering of forest birds.

A cave in a tree! A nice, albeit damp, place to call home.

Glistening plant life abounds at every scale.

Shapeshifting deciduous maples rise naked among the eternally green-cloaked conifers.

One of these trees had fallen across the trail - it was very difficult to climb over!

Look up...

Waaay up!

It was such an honour and thrill to be in its presence of this amazing giant. I was filled with euphoria and awe the entire time we stayed under its branches. It is called the "Boy Scout Tree" after a troop of boy scouts who came across it. As I gazed upon the tree and touched it, the name seemed wildly inappropriate because the concept of boy scouts, not to mention my small and insignificant self, are just a blip on the growth rings of this ancient behemoth. 

Salmon streams bring nutrients to help the trees grow big and strong.

If Ewoks had phone booths they might look something like this...