Come Go With Us...: Northern California Coastal Redwoods

Saturday, July 21, 2018

Day 37

46 miles

Daisy and I spent two nights in Crescent City (July 20 and 21) and two nights nearby in Klamath (July 22 and 23), which gave us 3 days to explore various highlights of the Redwood National and State Parks. In this post, I’m focusing on our July 21 excursion to the Stout Memorial Grove in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

First a little background...

Old-growth redwood forests have been reduced by logging from 2 million acres in the 1800s to 100,000 acres today. Redwood National and State Parks include almost 40,000 acres, nearly half of all that remains.

We drove east from Highway 101 on this road, Highway 199, then south and west on Howland Hill Road. It was exciting to be in the midst of these coast redwoods, which tower over all other trees in the world. Trees average 300 feet in height, with some giants over 360 feet. Giant sequoias, their cousins, grow larger in diameter and bulk, but not in height. We did not see any sequoias on this trip.

The last three miles of Howland Hill Road was this two-way, single-lane, gravel and dirt road, with pullouts to allow oncoming traffic to get by. This was a prime example of focused driving for me in our truck camper, but the sights of huge redwoods were worth it.

We were hoping for a parking lot at the Stout Grove, but there were only small areas to park along the roadside. We were able to turn around and backtrack to the entry road and find a place to park our truck camper. It was dwarfed by the giant redwoods.

As we were walking toward the grove, I posed by this welcoming tree. Sword ferns that are more than waist-high carpet the forest floor and normally flared tree bases are covered in river soils.

Stout Memorial Grove, a majestic example of an ancient coast redwood forest, is often considered to be the heart of the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. In 1929, Mrs. Clara Stout donated this 44-acre grove to the Save the Redwoods League to save it from being logged and to memorialize her husband, lumber baron Frank D. Stout. Today, land continues to be added to these northernmost parks through the efforts of the League.

Redwoods can reproduce from tiny seeds, sprout from a burl, or grow from a stump. This group of connected trees probably sprouted from a single source.

This photo shows examples of large burls growing on the redwood trunks. Burls are woody material full of unsprouted bud tissue, and they are prized for the creation of pieces of wood art.

In identifying redwood trees, the color of the bark is a clue. Look for grayish, vertically striped trunks and sometimes a rusty red tinge. The reddish color of new bark weathers to gray over the years.

A walk along a .5-mile loop trail revealed colossal redwoods thriving in rich soil deposited during periodic flooding of the Smith River. Flood waters inhibit the growth of understory trees and plants seen in other groves, leaving the 300-foot redwoods as the main attraction.

Coast redwoods are found growing naturally in a zone 450-miles long by 25-miles wide and below 3,000 feet in altitude, along the Pacific Ocean from central California to the southwestern corner of Oregon. Ancient forests such as this one are among the earth’s last remnants of these remarkable tree giants.

Trees weren't the only things we observed in this forest. Banana slugs such as these are reported to eat everything in their path except redwood seeds and seedlings. Their average growth is 5 to 9 inches. They are hermaphrodites, which means they have the reproductive organs associated with both the sexes so they can act as both male and female at the same time. On rare occasions, they are even known to mate with themselves. Their Latin name is "dolichophallus," which means "giant penis."

The only other “critter” we saw in the Stout Grove, except for the tourists, was this colorful Steller's Jay.

Some of the redwoods showed clear signs of fire damage, but unlike this example, they often continue to live and grow.

These fallen trunks had been cut and the size of the cross sections were amazing….

…but this even larger fallen tree still had the root wad attached, and ferns growing from the trunk.

Yes, I have been known to be a tree hugger, but it would take much longer arms to surround this redwood!

Looking skyward through a group of majestic redwoods is humbling, as was our total experience here in Stout Grove. This was one of the highlights of our travels.