RETIREMENT TRIP #7

Among the Giants

                                                                                  This morning we breezed through the California Inspection Station at the State line without even a blink.  The guard took one glance, smiled and waved us on.  Andy never even came to a complete stop with the little black Ford Fiesta.  Maybe it’s our advanced age or the Utah license plates.  But then again we didn’t even have a piece of fruit in the car to declare.



Two weathered, concrete bears growl
at visitors to the entrance to what remains
of the old Klamath River Bridge.

A sign said the fire danger in Crescent City was high. That was hard to believe since fog blanketed the city.  We saw the low-lying sheet of white from way down the road as we drove south.  There seemed no rhyme or reason for it—no mountain or river—but Crescent City is on the bay.  Maybe that’s the explanation.  A glance at the map confirmed the idea.  The city and surrounding area actually extend out into the ocean as a large jut surrounded on three sides by water.  It was just morning fog not yet burned off at 10 a.m.

We stopped at the site of the old Klamath River Bridge, where for 40 years it had spanned the Klamath River near its mouth.  At Christmas in 1964, the area experienced 24 inches of warm rain in less than a week.  It melted the snow pack and carried down redwoods, which piled up against the bridge.  The pressure became so great that the logs and raging river took out the whole center span.  Displaced citizens of Klamath watched in horror and amazement.  When they rebuilt Klamath, they located the town farther upstream out of harm’s way.  The concrete bears mark all that is left of the old city and its lovely bridge.

California Highway Department gets a grade of F.  They worked diligently on one-lane sections of Route #101, but when we got off the highway just south of Klamath, there was no sign that the Coastal Drive was not accessible.   It was clearly labeled on the roadmap.   About five miles in at High Bluff, the road ended.

The magnificent redwoods tower
to the heavens.

We turned around to take Alder Camp Cutoff.  Two miles later that turned to dirt and the connection to Coastal Trail Road said one-way.   We headed seven miles back to Route #101.  Five miles south we tried the other entrance to the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway.  Two miles in, the south branch was barred and the north end turned to dirt a mile later.  We knew California highways were in bad shape, but not even to put up a sign?  Guess money is tight all over!

We tried the southern entrance to the Drury Parkway at Prairie Creek State Park.  That too was closed off a couple miles in, right after the campground.  Foiled again!  There weren’t even any elk grazing in all the prairie fields.  Guess we lose!

Ironically, following the Coast wasn’t an option since the fog bank still clung to the coastline at noon.

But we were able to drive to the Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Grove.  There we hiked the mile-long Lady Bird Johnson Grove Nature Trail and read all the information about the Redwoods.
Redwood forests once blanketed the Pacific Coast from southern Oregon to Big Sur, California.

Intense logging from 1850 through the present reduced the redwood forests to a fraction of their original expanse until today less than four percent of the old-growth redwood forests remain.

Sempervirens is the scientific species name for coastal redwoods.  It means “everlasting.”  Most trees in this grove preserved by Lady Bird Johnson are 600-800 years old.

The redwood tiny, one-inch cone produces thousands of seeds, but the tree more successfully regenerates through massive clusters of bud material called root collar burls, which lie dormant beneath the soil until the tree is stressed by low rainfall or intense fire.  Then the sleeping sprouts awake.

Wind is the greatest gardener.  Quiet summer breezes give way to powerful gusts of winter storms that can snap the highest branches.

Occasional wildfires clear dense ground cover, giving new seedlings an opportunity to grow.  The thick insulating bark of the redwood lacks the volatile resins found in pines, firs and spruce, and its sap is largely water.   This combination slows combustion while the surrounding vegetation burns vigorously.  Fires can burn repeatedly through cracks in the bark into the heartwood, but it leaves the outside growing layers intact.  As the heartwood decays, it leaves hollow shelters for wildlife.  So fire creates instead of destroying.



Dangerous waves crash off the coast
by the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center.

Colonial seafarers and early American adventurers cursed the omnipresent rain and fog of northern California.  Andy and I just held our breaths, hoping it would go away.  A discomfort to some, the mild, wet climate of the North Coast ensures the survival of redwoods.  Wet winters soak the region under 60-70 inches of rain.  Summer produces little rain, but temperatures rarely exceed 80 degrees. 

The beach at Kuchel Visitor Center,
beautiful and deserted, warns of
extreme danger from sneaker waves.

Summertime fogs increase humidity and reduce the amount of water a tree loses through evaporation, softening the effects of drier periods.  Small, tightly spaced redwood leaves intercept moisture suspended in the fog.  While some absorbs directly into the leaves, most of the water collects on the grooved surface of the leaf and drips to the ground.  Water collected from fog may account for up to one-third of the total water in the redwood forest system.

The Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, surrounded by flowers,
memorialized those lost at sea.

By the 1960’s aboriginal redwood forests that had stood for millennia had vanished in less than a century.  The realization that old-growth forests were disappearing so rapidly led to the establishment of three redwood state parks in the 1920’s and to Redwoods National Park in1968.

From the lighthouse gardens, the California Coast stretches
in magnificence for miles. 

The denuding of hillsides around Klamath contributed to the extreme flooding in 1964.  Maybe that helped to spur park creation and redwood preservation.  Regardless, at Redwood Creek in 1969, Presidents Nixon and Johnson joined Governor Reagan in dedicating a 300-arcre grove to Lady Bird Johnson and her campaign to preserve America’s natural beauty. 

Days and years are not adequate to comprehend the ancient redwoods.  Twenty generations have passed since the tallest trees first started to grow in northern California soil.  Twenty more generations will come and go before the seedlings of today will fall to give life to new generations of redwoods.  Thank goodness for those who have the foresight to preserve and care for such treasures.



Views from the memorial lighthouse
point are amazing.

At Redwood Creek Overlook, the downstream tract had not been logged.  Trees, averaging 200-1,500 years old, grew 200-300 feet in height.  Now protected, this area won’t be logged, and the upstream neighboring tract is being reforested with logging roads contoured and new trees planted.

There was beach access at the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center and the fog had cleared out by 2:30 p.m.   But one sign warned of extreme fire danger on land and another warned of deadly surf.  I guess you can’t win at this spot!   Four people had been caught and died here in sneaker waves on the beach since 2004.  The waves were certainly bigger than those in Oregon, and the wind had picked up.  Still, it was beautiful and exciting.

Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse in Trinidad, California honored those who died at sea.  In spite of reconstruction of surrounding walkways, the gardens on the cliff ridge were spectacular and the view was breathtaking.

Even though we never saw the lighthouse,
the views from the trail are spectacular.

 

A concrete cross marks
the end of the trail for
sailors lost at sea.

 

From the same lookout as the picture above, the zoom
lens gives a totally different picture of the same scenery.

A one-mile loop trail led up the cliff to Trinidad Lighthouse, still in operation by the Coast Guard.  The trail wound around the cliff through rows of thick hedges, past a large stone cross and up to the summit where a university weather station monitored air quality.  We never found the lighthouse.  Back down at the car, Andy checked another map.  We had missed seeing the lighthouse by one turn at the top, but it was a challenging hike.  And since it is still Coast Guard operational, there are no tours anyway.  We hadn’t missed a thing!