Mein Freund der Baumgigant

June 20th and 21st, 2017

On both days, we will be exploring a relatively short stretch between Eureka and Crescent City in the forest. Here on the northwest coast of the USA, you will find the majority of the remaining Redwood mammoth trees along a 100 km distance. (One stands in Goddert, Westerwald).

Redwood is the collective term for two species of conifers that only grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Almost all of them are in California, with a few in Oregon. There are over 2000-year-old living specimens, reaching heights of up to 110 meters and diameters of seven meters.

The famous drive-through tree is currently closed because the yellow arrows on the road are being repainted. The paint takes a bit longer to dry here than it does for us, so the walking tour only costs one dollar instead of five dollars. With our snail shell, we wouldn't have been able to drive through anyway. The tree has a circumference of 24 meters and a diameter of approximately four meters. It is not part of the National Park program, as Debbie from the Info Center amusingly informs us.

Her recommendations are excellent. We take the Corkscrewer Trail and see plenty of, well, corkscrew trees that are even more impressive than the drive-through tree.

On the first evening, we actually camp right in the middle of the Redwood forest. It's eerie when you have to go to the bathroom at night and walk through a pitch-black fairy tale forest. It is completely dark, and the roots become death traps. You can't help but look around to see if Frodo and Gandalf are just around the corner.

Even worse are the many campfires that burn from eight in the morning and stink everything up. The USA is the number one non-smoking country in the world. But what they inhale from wood smoke puts everything else in the shade.

By the way, we cross the state border into Oregon. Cannabis is freely available and consumable here. In the first 100 meters, we see three people smoking a joint, one of them sitting in a car in the parking lot next to the liquor store. They're probably all from California, where they haven't come that far yet. They actually reintroduced border controls there. Hopefully, our neighbor can still drive straight and doesn't get caught.

Other than that, in Northern California and Southern Oregon, you will find the probably most beautiful coastline in the world.

We will check it out tomorrow.