Redwoods and Gold Beach, CA May 10, 2010

Eight golden bears have stood ever vigilant since 1925 at various locations around Klamath, CA. This one is at the end of the bridge over the Klamath River.

It didn't take long to find a giant redwood that only exist on a narrow strip of California Coastline which extends 450 miles from the California/Oregon border south to Monterey Bay. Coastal redwoods can soar to more than 370 feet tall!

Even the clover is huge!

We walked the Lady Bird Johnson Grove Nature Trail, a one mile loop that winds through an old-growth redwood forest. Today less than 4 % of old-growth redwood forests remain. At this site in 1969, Presidents Nixon and Johnson joined Governor Reagan in dedicating this 300-acre grove to Lady Bird Johnson and her campaign to preserve America's natural beauty.

How do hollow redwoods survive?? Despite the North coast's wet climate, redwood forests experience occasional wildfires. Countless fires have scorched the base of this redwood. Fires can burn repeatedly through cracks in the bark into the heartwood, but leave the outside growing layers intact. In time, the damaged heartwood decays, leaving behind hollows used as shelter by wildlife.

For a giant of a tree, they have a very small pine cone! Redwoods reproduce by seed and by stump and basal sprouting. Seeds slightly bigger than a pinhead are released from mature cones that ripen in August and September. If a redwood is felled or badly burned, a ring of new trees often sprouts from burls around the trunk's base. These so-called "family groups" are common. Saplings use the parent tree's root system. Redwoods have no tap root; their roots penetrate only 10-13 feet deep but spread out 60 to 80 feet.

Next we took the Coastal Drive, a scenic, partially paved drive 8 miles long that winds through stands of redwood. When we got to Gold Beach we stopped for a picnic lunch.

Gold Beach got its name because of the fine flecks of gold in the sand but it was too expensive to process. It is almost like flour! The sand here is very dark and black because of the volcanic rock in this area.