More from the Redwood National Park

Week 7 - The foot bridge is in!
I can now ride my bicycle into
Crescent City on an old
narrow coach road that winds between the
big redwood trees.  I feel like an Ewok riding on a cruiser in the movie
"Star
Wars."  Once on pavement in the outskirts of Crescent City, I pass a
short dead end side street called...Minnesota Ave.  Funny, I have seen
no other state street names here, except for...Iowa Street.  I hiked
into Fern Canyon a few weeks ago, where the valley floor is flat and
about 20 feet wide and has a small creek running in it.  The walls are
vertical, about 35 feet tall and completely carpeted with moss and 8
different species of ferns.  Sunlight slits through the top kind of like
light penetrating a key hole.  Water trickles down the sides in places.
Red alder trees grow along the gravel creek
bed in spots at 45 degree angles and with branches shooting off the
trunk straight up like miniature trees themselves.  They do this because
their roots get washed out easily during winter floods.  Its not spring
floods that washes them out because remember, this is a temperate
climate and winter is the rainy season.  The Pacific Ocean is the big
HVAC system and keeps this area cool in the summer and warm in the
winter - no spring snow melts to flood Fern Canyon.  I tell visitors
that not seeing Fern Canyon would almost be like going to Paris and not
seeing the Eiffel Tower.  I think I saw a Pterydactyl flying through
there!  Maybe it was just a big Raven.  Until next week.  j.d.