California
San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Muir Woods, Napa and Sonoma Valley, and some Coast
DAY 5, Part 3: Muir Woods
The trees under which the woman is sitting above are the same ones that are in the top picture. The camera's exposure made it impossible to make a composite, but I thought they were both worth including.
There was evidence in parts of Muir Woods of fire damage. The forest service has changed its policy about fire prevention. They now feel that small controlled burning of underbrush during a wet season will prevent a forest fire from having enough fuel to truly damage the large specimens of trees. All of that is fine, as long as there isn't any approval by any administration for "thinning out the forest" which really is a code word for clear cutting.
It was very interesting to walk around the park and see how the redwoods propagated. There were plenty of small specimens of redwoods that were growing up from the roots of live redwoods. There was also a sign that indicated that a ring of very large redwoods grew up from the roots of a much larger redwood that fell.
