This summer, as I traveled through California visiting my son, nephews and friends, I felt I had a commitment to visit the Redwood trees in the State’s Big Basin Park. These Redwood trees standing majestic and almost immortal for hundreds of years have inspired awe and reverence from all who visited them in the Park’s sprawling 2500 acres of forest land stretching from the shores of the Pacific to heights of Santa Cruz mountains. The native Indians worshipped them almost as their ancestors and when during the pioneer days the loggers started cutting them, the communities around started their `Save the Redwoods Campaign’ led by eminent men like Andrew P.Hill who initiated the Sempervirens Club to protect this ancient forest land. They also succeeded then to bring a ban on logging and transform these several acres into a State Park under the State of California. My own interest in these trees was sparked off by the news that some of my friends in a Women’s Association I belong to had dedicated some of these trees as memorials to the dear ones they had lost. These trees, I was told, could be adopted and looked after with plaques put on them as on grave stones. Since these trees live almost for ever (3600-4000 years), to lie among them was a sure way of perpetuating one’s life! It was indeed a memorable visit. The Big basin Park was only an hour away from Santa Cruz where we stayed.

Arriving inside the Park we were taken around the groves in which the trees stood tall and majestic, most of them about 200 feet in height. We crisscrossed several small rivulets on our way, these being the headwaters of San Lorenzo river that finds its way through the forest to the Sea. We also had a look at shoals of fish swimming up and down in shallow pools formed by the rivulets and we were excited to see a water fall coming down the hilly slopes of the vast Park. There were also the huge trees called the Mother and the Father of the Forest. The Father Tree was 16ft.10in in diameter with a circumference of 66 ft at ground level. The Mother Tree, even bigger had a circumference of 70 ft and a height of 329 ft. The spacious womb of the Mother Tree (where a fire had made a hollow) could hold at least 24 persons at a time! Yes, such fires, they said, were common occurance and we could see their marks on the barks and trunks. But the trees continued to grow in spite of these fires, and when they lost some of their parts in severe fires the roots gave rise to several saplings that grew and stood tall around the fire-damaged mother!

Another interesting National Park of Old Trees that I visited was the Olympic Rain Forest at the extreme north end of Washington State. A large National Park towered on one side by the snow-capped Olympic Mountains and sloping towards the wavy shores of the Pacific ocean on the other, the Olympic Rain Forest offers an unforgettable sight of perennial trees (beech, cedar, fir and so on) that receive more than 142 inches of rain every year and deck themselves in thick green velvety moss throughout the year. The Forest almost looks like a scene from a fairy tale with pageants of green-robed trees greeting the onlookers. They say that even those onlookers, if they stand gaping too long will find green moss growing on their heads. We climbed up and down those hilly terrains, crisscrossed those flowing streams to walk through the Hall of Mosses a nick name with Biblical echoes) and stood by the trees almost tiny against their broad and tall splendor.

Yes, stopping by the trees was indeed an experience similar to Robert Frost’sStopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.

This web site is created and maintained by Hendré Falkson

---