Last week – just in time for National Trails Day – newly appointed U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced the designation of 28 new National Recreation Trails located in 18 states across the country. These new additions offer a wide variety of experiences for outdoor enthusiasts while adding an additional 650 miles to the existing U.S. National Trail System.
Being granted National Recreation Trail status indicates that a particular route plays an important role in linking communities to public lands and local parks for recreational purposes. There are now over 1200 trails that hold that distinction across the U.S., covering a distance of more than 15,000 miles through a variety of environments and terrains. Many of those trails also hold particular historic or environmental significance above and beyond their ability to connect us with the outdoors.
Some of the trails that were recently added to the system include the Forever Wild Coldwater Mountain Trail in Alabama, which is 11.5 miles in length and open to hikers, trail runners and mountain bikers alike. Similarly, California’s 28-mile long Nadeau Trail was recognized for its historical significance and offers mixed-use options that include 4×4 off-road vehicles as well. Located in amidst the cornfields of Iowa, the Sugar Bottom Mountain Biking Trail System received its designation for providing 13 miles of unexpected challenges to Midwest mountain bikers, while New Mexico’s Sierra Vista Trail is 29 miles of hiking, biking and horseback riding bliss.
When it comes to giant California redwoods, size matters. Or at least that was my premise when I committed to a long detour that would take me through the state and national Redwood parks of Northern California in early May. A friend had suggested that I could visit Muir Woods, just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, to get my redwoods fix, but when I read that the biggest redwoods were up near the Oregon border, suddenly the moderately huge redwoods of Muir Woods simply wouldn’t do.
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The desire to see the world’s biggest trees led me into a knee-deep thicket of ferns alongside the Smith River in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, my first stop on an early May redwood road trip with my wife and two little boys. I was looking for a tree called the Del Norte Titan, one of the world’s largest (by cubic feed of wood) at 74 feet in circumference, or the equivalent of 108 cans of coke, and a grove called the Grove of Titans, but I had just a vague set of instructions pulled off the Internet.
I had written in my notebook, “Grove of Titans – across from Stout Grove @ Smith River end of Mill Creek.” We had hiked through the Stout Grove trail and had veered off onto the Hiouchi Trail, but it seemed to peter out into a thicket of ferns. We could see the Smith River and we were at the creek but did we need to cross the river? And if so, where were the summer footbridges noted on the map (rocks?) that would enable us to get across?
Park officials and the handful of redwoods geeks who know the location of the Grove of Titans won’t divulge where it is, for fear that hordes of tourists would seek it out and ultimately damage the trees. After a few minutes of pointless bushwhacking and staring, mystified, at the photo of the trail map I had taken on my camera, I realized that I wasn’t going to find the Grove of Titans, at least not on this day.
We trekked back to the Stout Grove trail, passing wave after wave of colossal redwoods -mighty, seemingly indestructible trees that were as tall as a 30-story building and so thick that sumo wrestlers could stand next to them and appear svelte – and I lost interest in searching for the biggest trees. On a Thursday morning in May, we had the place almost all to ourselves, and the appeal of the place was in the silence and the way the giant, timeless redwoods made us feel small, almost insignificant. If you spend too much time obsessing over size, you run the risk of missing the forest for the trees.
Coastal redwoods grow only in a narrow, damp corridor, 40 miles wide and 450 miles long, in Northern California that stretches just over the border into Oregon. The trees once covered more than 2 million acres of Northern California but today, only about 4 percent of the trees remain, and the survivors are around thanks to the intervention of some committed naturalists who founded the Save the Redwoods League nearly a century ago.
After leaving Stout Grove, we drove west on Howland Hill Road, a narrow, shady path dominated by gigantic trees that loom ominously over the humble, potholed little passageway. As my wife drove, I read a fascinating piece in Orion Magazine about how Steve Sillett, a professor of redwood forest ecology at Humboldt State University, and his friend, Michael Taylor, discovered the Grove of Titans on May 11, 1998. (Particularly stout redwoods are referred to as “titans.”) The fact that they found the grove only after seven hours of intense bushwhacking that left them bloodied and nearly insane made me glad that I didn’t invest too much time in looking for them myself, but it also made me intensely curious about the beasts that lurk in the nether regions of the park, hidden from the public.
We were once again awestruck by the magnificent redwoods on the Cathedral Trees – Big Tree Loop at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, just south of Jedediah Smith. And by the time we took the steep drive up Bald Hills Drive to see Lady Bird Johnson Grove in the adjacent Redwood National Park, I had given up all hope of finding Hyperion, supposedly the world’s tallest tree at 379 feet and located somewhere in the untrammeled interior of the park.
If you consult Yahoo Answers, some yahoo has listed what he claims are the GPS coordinates of Hyperion, as though one could simply pull the car right up to the damn thing. Another so-called “Geography expert” claims, “The tree is well marked for tourists that go there.” If you believe that, check out, Mario Vaden’s roundup about Hyperion – which states that the “rare few” who have found this tree “all have one thing in common: some bleeding.”
The Lady Bird Johnson Grove, dedicated to President Lyndon Johnson’s wife, a redwood lover, by then Governor Ronald Reagan and President Richard Nixon in 1969, is a perfect introduction to the giant redwoods for those who are short on time. We arrived late in the afternoon and the trees were partially enshrouded in a dense fog that only added to the surreal beauty of the place.
It was perfectly quiet, with not another soul around, and we nearly broke our necks marveling at all the majestic trees. Weather changes quickly in these parts, and by the time we’d completed the 1.4-mile loop, rays of sunshine bathed clusters of the hulking trees in a golden light. As we walked to the parking lot, I whistled the Woody Guthrie tune that had been in my head all day.
From California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters This land was made for you and me
After a restful night in Arcata, an inviting little town with a distinctive central plaza, we were back on the Redwood Trail, heading south to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. I worried that hitting four parks might be redwood overkill, but as we set out on the first trail of our second day, the Greig French Bell Trail, I felt like I still hadn’t had my fill of redwoods. Each park has a different feel and the trails are all unique.
The Founders Grove Trail, our second stop of the day, is reason enough to visit Humboldt. Midway through the short, 1.3 mile loop, we stumbled across the Fallen Giants area, which is littered with titanic fallen trees, none bigger than the Dyerville Giant, once considered the world’s tallest tree at somewhere between 362-370 feet, or just taller than Niagara Falls.
The Dyerville Giant was hit by another tree, causing it to topple over on March 24, 1991. No one witnessed it crashing to the ground, but a neighbor who heard the sound from a mile away said it sounded like a train wreck. Walking alongside it, one can barely believe its immensity. It feels like it’s as long an aircraft carrier, and even on its side, it stands nearly 8 feet tall. The walk past the magnificent Fallen Giants felt like a stroll through hallowed ground; oddly enough it is somehow easier to digest the grandeur of these trees dead than alive, in the same way you can’t appreciate a great work of art until the artist is gone.
Somewhere in this vicinity, according to the trail’s interpretive guide, lives the world’s oldest redwood at over 2,200 years old. (The world’s oldest known tree, the Patriarch Tree, in the White Mountains of Eastern California is believed to be between 5,062-3 years old.) We were sharing our Friday morning with a living thing that was older than Jesus Christ and the fact that this grove of trees will hopefully still be around in another 2,000 years, speaks to the humble place we occupy, alive for just a brief spell in the scheme of the universe.
The 30-mile Avenue of the Giants is unquestionably scenic, but I preferred our four-mile detour onto Mattole Road, a narrow, bumpy road dominated by towering redwoods that led us to two more splendid hikes in the Rockefeller Grove and (not-so-cleverly-named) Big Tree areas. On a hike in the Big Tree area, I stopped to record the stats on a sign in front of the appropriately named Giant Tree. Height: 363 feet, circumference: 53.2 feet, average crown spread: 62 feet.
The Giant Tree seems thicker than the cast of a Sir-Mix-A-Lot video when you take the time to walk around it, but when you consider that the Del Norte Titan, for example, has a circumference of 74 feet, it’s clear that the big, easy-to-find trees in the parks are small potatoes compared to what’s lurking deep and hidden, far off the trails. (And the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park, though shorter at 275 feet, is even stouter at 78.5 feet circumference.) I’m still torn over whether I want to return to find the world’s biggest trees or if I want to keep them alive in my imagination, as mysterious, unapproachable giants that deserve to be left alone.
Great Short Hikes in the Redwood Parks
Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park
Stout Grove- .6 miles
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
Big Tree Loop- 3.2 miles
Redwood National Park
Lady Bird Johnson Grove- 1.4 miles
Humboldt Redwoods State Park
Big Tree Area- .6 miles
Rockefeller Loop- .7 miles
Founders Grove- 1.3 miles
IF YOU GO: I flew into and out of San Francisco, which is about 6 hours south of Arcata, the town we used as our base to explore the parks. If you are going to visit one park, I recommend Jedediah Smith or Humboldt, which I think are the two most scenic to explore, either on foot or on scenic roads like Howland Hill Road in Jedediah and Mattole in Humboldt.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library just debuted a new exhibit on the most famous Republican.A. Lincoln: From Railsplitter to Rushmoreopened Saturday and will run through September 31. With 250 items culled from major collectors, it’s the largest assemblage of the Lincoln family’s personal effects ever displayed.
But other museums have examples of this exhibit’s highlights, such as his stovepipe hats, Lincoln-signed 13th Amendments and his gold pocket watches. There are plenty of blood-stained fabrics from the night of his assassination (curiously, none have been used to yield a sample of Lincoln’s DNA – that doesn’t exist). What makes this exhibit in Simi Valley, California, stand out is the inclusion of sets and costumes from Lincoln, the recent movie by DreamWorks Studios.
If you saw the movie, you’ll recognize the office where Daniel Day-Lewis gave his entrancing soliloquies, Mary Todd Lincoln’s dresses and parts of Peterson’s Boarding House, the building where Lincoln died.
The exhibit, which commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, plays into the current fascination with Lincoln’s personal life. For decades he was widely perceived as a caricature – Honest Abe, who freed the slaves – and now Lincoln mania is drawing attention to the real man behind the stovepipe hat, his family and his political genius. Who would guess that 40 years ago, there wasn’t vast interest in Lincoln at all? According to James Cornelius, an Abe expert from Lincoln’s presidential library in Springfield, Ill., the 16th president enjoyed a big moment during the Civil War’s centennial in 1965, but then the fever died down until Ken Burns revived pop culture’s interest with his blockbuster Civil War documentary in 1990.
We’re pretty sure A. Lincoln won’t be the last homage for a while, though it will likely remain the largest.
I’m a sucker for brochures. It makes no sense to plan one’s vacation itinerary, even in part, based on what you see in the flyers and brochures you pick up in your hotel lobby or at a visitor’s information office, but sometimes I do just that, and I suspect I’m not alone. By the end of a trip, I might have dozens of papers, maps and brochures strewn about my rental car and most of the time, they provide little if any useful information. And sometimes they are downright misleading. But I still keep picking the damn things up. Why?
On a recent trip to visit the Redwood parks in Northern California I stayed in a well-known national chain hotel in Arcata. As is my custom, I perused the collection of brochures in the lobby. I found brochures for four different casinos, one outlet mall, a golf course, two safari parks, two amusement parks, Jet Ski rental, a paintball park, “Bigfoot Rafting,” whatever the hell that is, and a cheese factory, among other tourist traps. The hotel is located just minutes away from Redwood National Park and a host of magnificent state parks that have some of the biggest and oldest trees in the world, but there were no maps or useful information on any of them.The parks are all free and the government employees who work there have no obvious incentive to drop off visitor’s guides or other materials at area hotels, but the four casinos in the region and all the other tourist traps have a vested interest in getting their brochures out there. I asked the hotel about their brochure policy but my query was received as though I had asked them to reveal a state secret and I never got a straight answer from them on how they decide what brochures to stock.
As an experienced traveler, I should know better than to visit a place based on what I see in a glossy brochure. But I have to admit I’ve been suckered more than once. On this same recent trip to the West Coast, for example, I saw a photo of some very impressive boats in a brochure for Petaluma, a bedroom community near San Francisco. I knew nothing about the town and assumed, based upon the photo, that it was on the Pacific Coast. The brochure contained boasts about the town’s historic district, and when I resolved to stop there, I had visions of a nice walk through an old, waterfront town.
A quick search on Google Maps revealed that the town is inland and has a river running through it, but I was already sold and decided to stop there anyway. No slight against Petaluma, because it’s a very pleasant town and it looked like a great place to live, but it isn’t much of a tourist attraction. On the day we visited, I saw no boats, impressive or otherwise, and it took all of five minutes to check out the historic district.
I’d estimate that 90 percent of the world’s most interesting places to visit have no brochure and at least half of the places that do are a complete waste of time and money. Still, don’t be surprised if you see me in a hotel lobby with an armful of glossy, empty promises that probably won’t pan out. Some habits are hard to break.
Good news for mountain bikers looking to hit a trail this long Memorial Day Weekend. The fabulous Mammoth Mountain Bike Park will open to riders this Saturday, kicking off another great summer season with a variety of trail options for riders of all skill levels.
Located in California‘s scenic Sierra Nevada range, Mammoth Mountain is a year-round outdoor playground for those who like to get away from it all. In the winter it offers some of the premiere skiing in all of North America and in the summer the bike park opens for a completely different type of fun. The park offers more than 80 miles of trail that includes cross-country, single-track routes with breathtaking views and adrenaline-inducing downhill courses for the more adventurous amongst us.
Mammoth Mountain’s trails offer gentle riding for beginners and more technical and leg-straining options for the experienced mountain biker. When the park opens on Saturday at least 12 of its trails will be ready for action. If you’re already familiar with what the park has to offer, the list of trails that will be open include: Downtown, UpTown, Big Ring, Paper Route, Juniper, Timber Ridge, Shotgun, Lower Pipeline, Lower Bullet Lakes Trail and Pioneer Practice Loop.
To celebrate the opening of the park for the summer, Mammoth is also offering an outstanding deal for this weekend. Just $69 will get you both lodging and a bike pass good for unlimited riding. You’ll have a hard time getting on this course for less cash than that anytime soon. What a great way to kick off the summer!