The Humboldt Redwood Forest

South of Ferndale, CA is the start of the Humboldt Redwood Forest. The main "touristy" road runs for about 25 miles through the heart of the area, with many different groves of trees to see. Let's play "Just imagine"....a peaceful setting, the sun sending it's warming rays to the forest floor, with birds chirping, squirrels chasing each other up and down the trees...even a doe and her fawn foraging the tender shoots of plants. Now picture in your mind an image of a load of redwood logs heading to a mill to make boards for a nice deck to enjoy a bbq with all of your friends...yeah, baby! That's what we're talking about....the smell of freshly cut trees...the view from the top of a landing with the roar of a yarder in the background...the horn from a talkie-tooter echoing through the canyon...truckload after truckload of 3-log loads...what a nice life. Anyway, I'm back on subject...there's no logging going on here. LOTS of really BIG Trees, though.

Some of the trees are over 300' tall. Rumor has it that you can drive a car through the center of some live trees, but we didn't see them. Here's a pic of one that we were playing hide-n-seek in.

There were so many trees that had fallen, yet there really wasn't any apparent rot. This is why I want my next deck to be made of redwood, not to mention that if enough like-minded folks did the same, it may put a logger back to work.

This tree looked a little gnarly, like it would have been a nice place for a troll to live under or a sasquatch to live up in. Hey VF, maybe that's why no one can find a sasquatch...they look on the ground...maybe they live up in trees!

I'm pointing to a notch that was cut into the stump...it was put there by a logger back in the early days...probably around 1920 or so. They notched the trees so they could put in planks to stand on top of (called springboards). Then they would take their two-man saws and cut the tree down up where it wasn't swelled so much.

Here's my sweety, looking like a real forest bunny!

This is redwood sorrel, and it kinda tastes like sour granny smith apple peelings. Karen wouldn't try it. You can see it in the pic above (with Karen). It's on the ground in front of  and behind her. Too bad the salmon berries weren't ripe. I'll bet she would've like them.