Redwoods and Crescent City v. 86

 Redwoods vs. Sequoias- I always thought they were the same.  They are both tall, wide, and grow naturally only in California, according to the National Park Service.  They are related, but quite different.  Sequoias grow at 5,000 to 7,000 ft above sea level on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and are the largest trees in the world by volume.  Giant Redwoods need the daily moisture they get from growing in a 15 by 450 mile strip along the Northern California coast.  Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world.

We drove through Redwoods National and State Parks, stopping to admire the awesome trees several times.  We were struck by how many had fallen!  I read that these trees are very resistant to decay- made me wonder how long the trees had been down.

This was a very interesting sight.  The tree below had fallen, uprooted, 15 feet outside the picture.  The two branches in the picture kept growing up toward the sun.  These are 2 trees still growing!  The one on the right still seems to be a branch; the one on the left benefited from landing on a mound of dirt and created a new root system.  The Redwood can reproduce from a sprout or a seed.  Only seeds for Sequoias.

There are uprooted trees all over the place!

Bob found a new challenge: Redwood hurdling!

We camped in a Redwood grove near Crescent City, CA.  Why does that city sound familiar?  Tsunamis. Due to the way it juts out into the Pacific Ocean, and the underwater geography off the coast,  Crescent City is a tsunami magnet.  11 people died here as a result of the 1964 Alaska earthquake; one person died taking pictures of the 2011 tsunami after the Japan earthquake; and Crescent City was the site of the first debris to wash up in California from Japan on April 7th of this year.  An interesting tidbit- The first wave didn't kill anyone.  It was the subsequent waves that gathered force from receeding and combining with incoming waves that  were devastating.  We had dinner at the harbor, and only then connected the name of the city with past events.  It really is a fascinating area!