If you delight in Nature’s masterworks (and who doesn’t?) this triple question should have meaning for you.
Where in America can you find the world’s tallest tree? Other forest monarchs ranging up to 300 feet high? Trees still alive today that grew at the time of Christ?
Whether you have been there or not, most of you will know the single answer – the redwoods of Northern California.
My own memories, lingering from a visit to the Redwood National Park years ago, have been renewed by illustrated articles in two current publications.
“Our National Parks,” a book published by Readers Digest, devotes several pages to the redwoods; and the fall issue of Friendly Exchange, magazine of the Farmers Insurance Group, has an article by Sandra L. Keith who calls the forest “one of the worlds great wonders.”
As you walk among the redwood titans – their straight, furrowed trunks often bare for the first 100 or 20 feet – you feel a sense of reverence and enchantment. A kind of “worshipful hush” prevails and you will find yourselves speaking in whispers.
High overhead the delicate, feathery foliage of the massed trees seems to sweep the sky while flickers of splintered sunlight form patterns on the forest floor.
I remember, from our visit, joining hands with eight or so other persons to reach around one large tree… seeing a good-sized room carved inside one of the monarchs … and a roadway hewn through another.
At a roadside resort called Trees of Mystery, a half-dozen or more stately redwoods had grown in a close formation resembling a church. This was called the Cathedral. A man-made altar added an extra touch. We were told many come to the redwood shrine to worship and that marriages frequently take place there.
I regret that we did not take time to visit the world’s tallest tree – a colossus nearly 370 feet high. It and the second, third, and sixth loftiest trees are located in the Tall Trees Grove on Redwood Creek, part of a forest corridor known as the Emerald Mile.
Reaching the grove involves an eight-mile hike (one way) or a ride on a shuttle bus which cuts the hiking distance to 1 1/2 miles.
The world’s tallest tree, by the way, is a mere 700 years old, according to the Keith article. Wait till it gets its growth! The Readers Digest article says the redwoods have an astonishing life span – a millennium or two is not unusual – earning them the nickname, “the everlasting.”
Though the redwood forest stretches nearly 500 miles among the California coast, it is within the designated Redwood National Park that the trees reach their greatest beauty and stature. The park is 50 miles long and 7 miles across at its widest point.
Over a half million visitors logged in during the past year but the figure tells only part of the story. Untold additional thousands simply drive through the park, stopping at viewpoints, etc., without leaving their signatures at the information centers.
The redwoods are a precious slice of national heritage. I encourage a visit to the park, especially if you’ve never been there.