September 3, Redwood Forests

The Redwood Forests are stunning. The trees are soooooo very tall and straight and there are so many trees growing together in one area. The Redwood is the world's tallest living tree and grow from seeds the size of a tomato seed.

This is a typical tree. The branches are towards the top of the tree so you don't really see them on the mature trees.

This shows how small the needles are and you can see a pine cone to the right of the forefinger. It is bout the size of a large olive.

This tree has a huge burl on the bottom. This is where another tree can start. Many times a tree will start from it and you may have 2 to 5 trees all growing together and connected at the base.

This shows how a new tree has started growing from the top of a dead tree.

We've seen pictures of this but it is really strange to see it for real. We were along the coast and the fog had rolled in but was only a few hundred feet high and we were above it so it was like flying in an airplane and seeing the clouds below you. Rather a surreal sight.

Here you can see where a new tree started growing on top of a log of a dead tree. These are along the coast so they get a lot of rain but also when the fog is covering the area the tree absorb moisture from the fog.

This is simply called Big Tree. It is 21.6' in diameter, 66' in circumference, 304' tall and 1,500 years old.

The Redwoods are astounding but seeing the elk was EXCITING!!! This was the leader of the group. You could tell he was by the way he stayed around the others and by the rack on his head. Wow! There were 2 other males with smaller antlers who stayed in another part of the meadow and a couple of very young ones with just the dark neck and head.

Here are more of the herd.