Well Worn Trail: Part V, Among the Redwoods [pp. 496-501]

WELL WORN TRAILS.
and turns along the shelving banks of
Russian River over trestles and down
sylvan glades, preparing one by easy
stages for the full beauty of what is to
come. The term forest, as known to all
the world outside of California, gives but
a faint idea of the home of the redwoods.
The trees are so vast, the distance between them so great, the bark-strewn
ground so open, that the almost absolute
lack of underbrush, and the absence of
branches within two hundred or more
feet from the earth, suggest rather a
chapter from Baron Munchausen. A
mastodon walking demurely down a village street could not call forth more
ejaculations of surprise. You begin to
doubt your eyes, for you look twice before you reach their tops.
On a sunny day, when streamers of
light fresco and enamel the redwoods'
leafy roof, or when the fog creeps in
from the Pacific and fills all the higher
arches with a clinging fleecy mist like
clouds of incense, hiding everything save
the gigantic architecture of the boles,
then all that is lacking is the Sistine
choir and the processional to convince the
beholder that he is on sacred ground within some Brobdigna,gian cathedral.
As a mere sight for the tourist and the
globe-trotter a redwood grove is as much
one of the " lions" of California as the
Yosemite, Mount Shasta, the Geysers,
or the higher Sierra. Nowhere else in
the world are there trees to compare in
size and height with either the " big
tree," the Sequoia gigantea, or the redwood, the Sequoia sempervireits, not even
in the jungles of the tropics. I have cut
my way day after day through the most
impenetrable Asiatic jungles where the
light of the sun is never seen and have
felt neither enthusiasm nor wonder, for
I knew that they were remarkable only
for their denseness, which was due to
the network of vines and parasites and
A REDWOOD BURL.
not to the height of the trees. There is
nothing inspiring in such a living wall,
and the impression is one of irritation
rather than of wonder.
Across the Bay,- past the frowning
portals of Alcatraz, to Tiburon, three
hours ride through tule marshes, past
typical ranches, by picturesque towns,
in the midst of vineyards and orchards
of peach, fig, and prune, brings one,
almost before he is aware, out of the
smiling California lowlands into the heart
of the finest grove of redwoods in the
State. It is a bit of Nature's wonderland that stands almost within sight ot
the Golden Gate and yet is missed by
thousands of sight-seers, who think that
there is nothing to do but go out to the
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