To Wander Through the Redwood Trees
To walk among the mighty redwoods is to take a trip through time.
October 8-12, 2025
Redwood National and State Parks, CA
“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Isaiah 55:12
The terminus of our drive down the Oregon coast delivered us into northern coastal California.
Campsite on the Klamath River
Roosevelt elk
Despite living in California twice for a combined seven years, Peyton and I had never been to Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP). The combination of a national park and state parks to form a singular entity was unfamiliar to us and bears some explanation. RNSP are a complex of a national park and three California state parks. Combined, these parks preserve 45 percent (139K acres) of all remaining old-growth coast redwood forests.
Redwood forest originally covered more than two million acres of coastal California until the gold rush and unrestricted clear-cut logging all but decimated the giants to feed the insatiable demand for lumber to build San Francisco and other growing cities and towns. Fortunately for all of us, a hundred years ago a group of conservation minded individuals recognized that on the current trajectory, a majestic portion of the American landscape would be lost forever.
In the 1920s, the Save the Redwoods League raised money from individual donors to help create Prairie Creek, Del Norte Coast, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks. After lobbying from the league and the Sierra Club, Congress created Redwood National Park in 1968 and expanded it in 1978. In 1994, the National Park Service and California combined Redwood National Park with the three abutting Redwoods State Parks into a single administrative unit.
In 1960, John Steinbeck took a 3-month road trip with the goal of rediscovering the American identity. He chronicles his journey and reflections in Travels with Charley: In Search of America. I have been reading this book for a week and got to the section on the Redwoods last night. His account so grabbed me that I felt it was the most apt description of what we experienced.
"The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable.
“From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.
“They have the mystery of ferns that disappeared a million years ago into the coal of the carboniferous era. They carry their own light and shade.” —John Steinbeck
The root ball of this fallen giant is as tall or taller than many lesser trees
Rooted in Community
One fascinating thing we learned about Redwood trees is that despite being capable of growing in excess of 300’ tall, they have shallow root systems, reaching only 6 to 12 feet deep. Instead of digging deep taproots, their stability comes from spreading roots outward up to 80-100 feet and intertwining with the roots of other trees in a grove to create a shared support network.
Walking through the towering trees, the anecdote about the power of community couldn’t be more clear.
Pictures simply don’t do the mighty trees justice. This is an experience that must be felt and absorbed in person.
Roberts on the Road
For those just finding us, hello! Inspired by the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, our family is on a yearlong RV road trip in 2025-2026 to celebrate my husband’s retirement after 20 years in Naval Special Warfare, as well as our 24 years together during the ups and downs of it all.
With our 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son in tow, this trip to explore America’s national parks and beautiful places is intended to help our family reflect and reset as civilian life begins.
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For background info on who we are and where we’re traveling, we’d love for you to read the intro post. The full list of road trip blog posts can be found here. Thanks for stopping by!
