Photograph of California Redwood from National Redwood Forest, National Forest Service.
Stand at the base of a coast redwood and the huckleberry bushes tower over you. Watch statuesque Roosevelt elk grazing in the prairies. Observe the tail of a female Chinook salmon heave skyward as she makes a nest for her eggs. Whether a morning or night person, you can hear the endangered marbled murrelets’ keer across the treetops as they fly from sea to mossy nest. ” Redwood National and State Parks Website
Photograph of Sequoias from PD Photo.org
On January 9, 1908, with just the stroke of a pen, President Theodore Roosevelt used the powers of the Antiquities Act to create Muir Woods National Monument. William Kent, who donated the land for the monument, requested that it be named for noted conservationist John Muir.” Muir Woods Website
Trees. Whether they’re maples along Shore Road in Brooklyn, a hackberry someplace in the Midwest, or a madrone in California, they’re all beautiful.
For some people, trees provide spiritual sustenance. For others they’re the inspiration for art or poetry. For all of us, they refresh the air, exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen, while providing food and lumber. Of all trees with all their wonders, probably the most awe-inspiring are the California Redwood. ”Compared with me a tree is immortal,” wrote Sylvia Plath in I Am Vertical. No tree seems quite as immortal, quite as primordial, as a California Redwood and other Sequoia sempervirens. I’m always amazed at the number of people who live in the San Francisco Bay Area who have never been to Muir Woods. If you are one of them, you must go. If you plan to visit this area, you must include Muir Woods in your itinerary. You won’t regret it.
