Rockefeller Redwoods

This is another of the four redwood groves that I wandered through on Monday, after Founders Grove. I won't blog about all of them, but I think this one deserves special treatment because of the flooded landscape. Whether Rockefeller Redwoods floods every year or not I don't know, but I thought the water-soaked scenery evoked the ancient world these trees belonged to unlike any redwood forest I've ever seen.

The Coast Redwoods growing in California and Oregon are the last surviving members of the genus Sequoia, whose species were widespread on Earth during the time of the dinosaurs 200 MYA. I can just imagine a brontosaurus browsing the foliage being quite at home here...

Founders Grove

I made Founders Grove my first stop Monday morning. This is one of the most-visited places in Humboldt Redwoods SP, which is itself one of California's most visited parks, but during my visit I had the whole place to myself.





The light was going in and out behind clouds. I got pictures in the light, but a forest like this is otherwise too dark for my camera without using a flash. So I took several pictures of light coming through the trees.









Fallen redwood trees decompose slowly over hundreds of years and become gardens in themselves. I saw some some amazing examples Tuesday in Lost Man Creek. I hope some of those pictures came out. I haven't looked at them yet.













My rental car a little ways down the road to give you some sense of scale. And some sense of the roads I was driving on.