Redwoods National & State Parks
Home to the tallest trees on earth, Redwood National and State Parks sit in the foggy, coastal climate of northern California. Redwood National and State Parks is a partnership between the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation to manage 130,000 acres of forested lands, including 45% of the world’s remaining old-growth redwoods. In 1994, three redwood state parks (Jedediah Smith, Del Norte Coast, and Prairie Creek) joined with Redwood National Park to cooperatively manage adjacent lands, staffing, and visitor services. In addition to the old-growth forests of coast redwoods, the parks also include land along the rugged Pacific coast which offer spectacular views.
There are in fact three distinct redwood species: dawn redwood, giant sequoia, and coast redwoods. Fossil evidence suggests that redwoods descended from a group of conifers that thrived across Europe, Asia, and North America when dinosaurs roamed the Earth in the Jurassic period more than 145 million years ago. As Earth’s climate gradually and generally became cooler and drier, redwoods became restricted to three distinct geographic regions and evolved into the three species we know today. The moist, temperate environment of northern California keeps coast redwood trees continually damp, even during the driest summer droughts. Coast redwoods once occupied over two million acres of southern Oregon and northern California. Now, only five percent of ancient or “old-growth” coast redwood forests remain since logging began in 1850.
A coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) can grow to heights of up to 380 feet and 25 feet in diameter. Although coast redwoods are the world’s tallest trees, their cousin, the giant sequoia, which thrive in the high-elevation Sierra Neveda mountains of California are in fact larger by volume: shorter but much thicker. Most of the coast redwoods in the Redwood National and State Parks are between 500-700 years old, but the oldest can be over 2,000 years old. Their natural resistance to insects and fire, as well as their unique regenerative abilities, have helped them thrive for millenniums. The thick, fibrous bark of a coast redwood provides the trees with exceptional protection from fire and the lack of resin in the bark means it doesn’t fuel fire. Coast redwoods are engineered to withstand a typical forest fire event. However, if exposed to repeated fire events, the bark can fail exposing the inner wood of the trunk to fire damage and hallow out the truck entirely.
As enormous as coast redwoods are in size, they have a very shallow root system which can be only six feet deep. This is because the climate in which the coast redwoods grow is plentiful with water from rainfall and coastal fog, so the root system doesn’t have to go deep searching for water. Unfortunately, this leaves coast redwoods susceptible to toppling from high winds and flooding. Sometimes the root systems of several trees will entangle and provide each other with extra support, or they sometimes all topple together! Their unique reproductive abilities have contributed to their survival. Even though coast redwoods are huge, they have a tiny one-inch cone for spreading seedlings on the forest floor. They are also capable of cloning and you will often see sprouts coming from a stump or downed tree as you walk in the forest. Burls – hard, knotty growths that form from dormant seedlings on a living tree – can sprout a new tree when the main trunk is damaged by fire, cutting, or toppling.
During my visit to the redwoods, I stayed in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park which has a campground within a redwood grove and on the banks of the Smith River. The park is named after Jedediah Smith who was a mountain man and explorer of the West who followed Lewis & Clark in the early 19th century. This location was a short drive from several redwood groves with walking trails and the coastal community of Crescent City, California where there are spectacular views at Battery Point and Tolowa Dunes State Park. Further down the coast are beautiful views from Crescent and Endert’s Beaches. The southern end of the park is highlighted by Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park where US-101 makes it through some of the largest trees in the park. The national park section, Redwood National Park, is also in the south but access is limited to hiking trails and roads not accessible by motorhomes.
