In Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck wrote of the Redwoods, “No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe.” It’s impossible to fully appreciate how accurate Steinbeck’s words are until you walk in the Tall Trees and Ladybird Johnson groves yourself. I had wanted to see the redwoods for as long as I could remember, and they were more incredible than I ever imagined. They are a truly awesome sight, and they not only radiate a silent energy, but they inspire silence in everyone in their presence. Our hikes in the redwoods were some of the quietest of the whole trip. What can you really say about them besides “that’s a really big tree”? Instead, it’s best to just be quiet and soak up their stillness, their power, their calm.
Our stay in the redwoods was one of the most pleasant of the trip. As we headed up from San Francisco, we were worried that once again campsites would be hard to come by. Instead of trying to fight the crowds for a front country site, we went straight for the backcountry options, and got a permit for Flint Ridge, an eight-site campground only a quarter of a mile from the Coastal Drive. It did fill up, though, and we ended up sharing our site with another roadtripping couple from Portland (they were also in a Prius, funnily enough) who arrived too late to get an official permit. Sharing is never more obviously the right decision than when you know the horrible feeling of not being able to find a place to stay after a long day of driving.
The next full day in the park, we set out for the visitor center first thing to secure a Tall Trees permit. The Tall Trees grove is home to the tallest trees in the world, and the park only gives out a limited number of permits per day to visit it – the permit is free, but you have to get one to learn the day’s gate combination to get into the parking lot. We celebrated getting a permit with breakfast at the surprisingly awesome Palm Cafe in Orick – perfect bacon and homemade jams.
The current tallest tree in the world is called Hyperion, and though it’s technically in the Tall Trees grove, it’s not on the path, and there is no official way to get to it. We made a halfhearted attempt to cross Redwood Creek and find it, but after Victor went for an accidental swim, we decided to spend the afternoon sunbathing on the creekbank instead, after we hiked the short loop through the grove. It was a beautiful day – very sunny, about 70 degrees. Combined with the quiet stoicism of the towering trees, I would have been content to never return to civilization. There is plenty of space to live in the hollowed-out base of a redwood.
Someday, I want to go back to Redwood and spend a week or two there, because we just didn’t have enough time to hike all of the good hikes. For better or worse, we got back on the 101 and continued north into Oregon.
The Indigents Abroad 