Yep, the first part of our journey into
Dangerous Ground
took us to the land of the Sasquatch, the legendary ape-human of the
Pacific Northwest forests. That's not him in the picture above, although
I could understand the misinterpretation. That's actually me taking a
rare selfie at the Golden Gate Bridge. We were only an hour into our
journey, and we had 200+ miles to go, but we couldn't resist being
tourists for a moment. It was a wonderfully clear day in the Bay Area.
Our
real goal was to reach a part of ancestral California, the Redwood
forests. The original range of the trees extended from the Big Sur Coast
to the Oregon border, but the wood is durable and therefore valuable.
The forests were removed and only a few intact forests remain, with only
about 5% of the old growth groves left. Thankfully they are mostly
protected, but there is still a sense of great loss as we drive past
mile upon mile of either barren slopes, or slopes covered with brush and
sometimes young redwood trees. But often not.
These
trees are the tallest in the world. There are rumors from the past of
400 foot tall trees of other species, but the claims date from more than
a century ago, and these supposedly huge trees were cut down. I don't
know if loggers exaggerate any more than other workers, but who knows?
I'm pretty skeptical of the claims, and they can't be tested. The
tallest Redwood is 379 feet (115 meters), and it was discovered only in
2006. There may still be taller ones out there.
There
is really nothing quite like wandering through a mature forest of
Redwood trees. The sun may be shining, but the light at ground level is
more of a diffuse emerald green. Once the sun gets low, the forest
becomes gray, and then pitch-black. I have a hard time imagining
orienteering in places like this. Landmarks can be hard to come by.
Because
we were vagabonding, i.e. not really planning far ahead, we stayed at
Humboldt Redwoods State Park only because I was able to score a late
cancellation. We got two nights. We explored the old growth forest along
Bull Creek, and had a close look at one of the truly giant trees, which
is called (by some degree of coincidence) "Giant Tree". It's only 16
feet short of being the tallest tree in the world, at 363 feet (110.6
meters). It towered over us.
It
was gigantic, but from the ground it was difficult to see how tall it
really was. You can see it in the photo below, just a bit right of
center. The picture was possible only because the tree was near the edge
of the grove. If it were in the middle of the grove, we could have
walked right past it without realizing how it towered above the other
trees.
This new series is called "on dangerous ground",
but in this instance the danger was more to the trees than to us. We
were inland, far from the dangers of tsunamis, but not far enough inland
to be threatened by volcanic eruptions in the Cascades. Giant
earthquakes have no doubt knocked a few of these trees over, but some of
these ancient giants have survived five or six of the magnitude 9
tremors that have shaken the region in the last 2,000 years. No, the
real danger is us, and what we've done to this ancient forest.
About
that Sasquatch thing. Of course I believe that a race of gigantic
ape-people have managed to survive and stay hidden in these deep
forests, leaving behind no traces, no tools, and only revealing
themselves to charlatans and book authors. Of course I believe. I also
believe that the range of Sasquatch sightings happens to correspond
pretty close to the range of the Black Bear, but no one could possibly
mistake a seven-foot tall bear covered in dark fur in a dark forest with
a seven-foot tall ape-human covered in dark fur in a dark forest.
Especially if one believes hard enough.
But belief, no matter how fervently felt, doesn't prove much...
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