Surprised by the Giants

Sequoia National Park was a long drive, and we arrived at night, climbing through hairpin turns in the Sierra Nevada in the deepening darkness.  It was cold in the mountains.  The air conditioner went off, the windows opened, and then closed to keep out the chill.  The moon shone brightly. 

And then, in the window beside the road, the first of the giant Sequoia’s came into view.  Massive.  Orders of magnitude more massive than any other old growth tree.  And as we drove, more and more of them looming out of the darkness in the headlights. 

Why did these trees grow so much larger than others?  A fortuitous climate must surely play a role.  Gigantic size is an advantage in the rough western forests.  The Sequoia are relatively hard to kill with fire – and many of them had scars to attest to their capacity to survive.  Massive and very tall trees have an inherent advantage in fire.  The fire resistant bark protects the tree from blazes on the ground, and its height provides some protection against the efforts of flame to leap into the canopy.  Eternal age also provides the advantage that the very old trees can set seeds for thousands of years, potentially increasing their chances of reproduction.  Yet such age has its drawbacks.  The Sequoia tends not to evolve quickly, which may diminish its ability to respond to threats to which it is not already well adapted.

The campground was in the higher woods above the sequoia grove.  Old growth Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir and (perhaps?) Lodgepole Pine provide massive though not sequoia-scale shade.  One tent that night, as the many bear warnings had Patricia concerned about separation from our cubs.  A tent set up by flashlight, children carried to it from the van.

In the morning David asked to go on a walk by the river / creek that ran past the camp ground.  Climbing boulders by small water-falls and riffles.  I joined him, and together we climbed up the trail for a while.  The forest was beautiful, and the trees were old.  But it was sick.  Quite a few of the old firs and pine were dead and others were dying.  Climate change? Bark Beetles?  Drought?

The Sequoia themselves seemed healthier.  Enormous trees.  So much larger than any others that they made old growth pines and firs seem small.  Tall.  Grand.  Wide.  Able to absorb gigantic wounds from forest fires and continue growing.  Able to last for thousands of years.

The walk through the Sequoia was complicated by the need to get the children to a Ranger talk, so I dropped them off, and the walked with Miriam with the backpack down the half mile trail from the main parking lot.  The General Sherman Tree was very very impressive (as billed).  Miriam stopped fussing on the way down.  After we took our pictures we set out on the Congress trail, a two mile loop through the Sequoia grove.

Golden Gate Nanny State?

We arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge just at 9:00 with the view of seeing the sunset while we walked across part of the span.  We saw the bridge and the sunset – both were beautiful -- but not the sunset from the bridge.  The bridge closes to pedestrian traffic at 9:00.  Perhaps this is to prevent night-time suicides from taking the fatal plunge?  If so, it may be justified as a means of protecting the public.  But for us it was unfortunate as it also forecloses many pleasant strolls along that beautiful span in the gathering dusk.

The Good People of California

California is a multi-ethnic melting pot.  At the playground near my Aunt Robin’s house, I realized that representatives of many of the earth’s races were there with us – two Asian parents played with their small son, two African American boys swung on the swings, and two Hispanic boys (likely with significant Aztec or Mayan heritage) played basketball. 




I’m sure there is racial tension in the state, but the most significant conflict we saw was in the parking lot of an upscale grocery store in the Coastal Range where an angry white man with a bloody nose and a hatchet faced off against two other white men, with various bystanders nearby trying to help calm things down.  Fortunately the situation had deescalated by the time the police arrived. 




To the contrary, I’ve been struck by the cross-ethinicity kindness of strangers.  On the beach in Southern California Miriam gave evidence that the call of nature meant we needed to visit the porta potty – her evidence is to start walking up the beach with a purpose… Woe to the parent of failed to heed the cue and follow.




Several generations of an extended Latino – heritage family were grilling marsh mallows and other foods in one of grills at the top of the beach.  They thought Miriam wanted one of the mallows… which she probably did at least a bit since she rarely doesn’t like getting candy.  And offered her one.  Helped us cook it. 

 
Down the beach we reached the heavily traversed porta potties.  A Latino man in his 40s or 50s thought the floor of the Jon was in such bad condition that he offered to loan me his flip flops (I was barefoot) to help protect my feet while I helped Miriam heed the call of nature.