Humboldt Redwoods holds seventeen thousand acres of ancient redwood, the largest expanse of it left anywhere on earth, and Rockefeller Forest inside it is the biggest unbroken stand of old growth redwood in the world. Standing in it does something to people. It’s the one day on the menu that’s worth getting up in the dark for.
We leave at half past six with coffee and breakfast in the van, stretch at Westport for the last of the coast, then turn inland and come into the Avenue of the Giants at Phillipsville: thirty-two miles of two-lane road with the canopy shut right over the top of it and the light coming down green.
First stop is Founders Grove, on a short flat loop, where the Dyerville Giant came down in 1991 and you can walk the whole length of its root plate, which is the size of a house. Then Rockefeller and Bull Creek Flats, which are the biggest trees you will ever stand under and don’t get any less astonishing the longer you look. Lunch at the picnic area, the visitor center at Weott for the logging history and the story of how any of this survived at all, and the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree on the way out, because you may as well.
