Giant trees of California
We look back to some of our big adventures, and none comes bigger than scaling a redwood giant!
2023 saw us join Tim Kovar’s Tree Climbing Planet crew for a special day. Once a year they take small number of argonauts up into a beautiful tree and at a mere 800yrs old, this Coast Redwood near Santa Cruz, California is just a young thing. Known as ‘Grandfather’, the tree is still huge though and it really feels like you’re climbing forever. But before you know it, the ground is far below through the leaves giving great you fine views over the forested ridges beyond. Chilling with Danish expert climber Mikkel Praem at half height was fun.
Tim’s team are great and at 60m we soaked up the atmosphere, hung out and admired the view as we chatted about nature and trees. When it was time to venture back down to earth with a huge glow in my heart and my head buzzing with the experience. There were big smiles all round and we of course posed for photos at the top and back at the base where we happily felt quite small. But bigger trees were to come…
Giant coast redwoods are amazing trees for so many reasons. Living for thousands of years, they’re specially adapted to live in a tough spot, gleaning moisture from the dense summer fogs on their leaves, and also causing water to drip to the ground providing water to the redwood forest understory. A whole load of cool creatures live in the canopies of these old trees including worms, salamanders and plants such as Sitka spruce, ferns and huckleberry. Learn more at Save the Redwoods.
Working our way north, we visited famous groves of sequoias such as Henry Cowell, Muir Woods, Lady Bird Bowers and lots more. Each had a different feel, a character of how the trees grow, or survived harvesting back in the day. What quickly became apparent was that due to their sheer size, it was nigh on impossible to fully appreciated their vastness, there was simply so much tree stretching over 100m up into the air. One tree gives a good feel for it, can you spot the little figure at its base?!
We walked in sunshine, showers, snow and storms, quite a wild time really with road closures and power-cuts in several of our camp spots. That made it all the more magical when the sun did make it out and wildlife a ruby throated hummingbird suddenly appeared in front of us.
We walked along the mighty fallen trunks, peered up into great fire caves, and marvelled at all the diversity of crazy lichens that had come down in the storms, something that only the luckiest canopy scientists would normally ever see. After two weeks we felt quite at home though it was kinda chilly and dark in there.
So before we flew home, we zipped over to Pinnacles National Park, home of funky Gray Pines. Tiny in comparison, these trees had all kinds of cool shapes, living in amongst red rock and hot sunshine. We soaked up the sun and watched 16 species of raptors including breathtaking views of California Condors just above our heads! With our heads stuffed with sights of giant trees, birds, sea lions, sea otters by the score, and a glimpse of gray whales, it was time to set sail for home. So long California and till next time!
