If you’ve been on the trails of Sequoia Park, closer to the zoo, you may have noticed that the Sequoia Park Zoo Redwood Skywalk appears to be finished, however, the Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation still has some final steps to take before opening the new attraction to the public. According to a statement from the […]
redwoods
Posted inLife + Outdoors
A Bicycle Ride Among the Giants
At 7 a.m. on Sunday, the forest is quiet, the temperature cool, the road sparsely used by cars. This is an ideal time to ride my bicycle on the Avenue of the Giants. Once sunlight starts filtering through the canopy, the asphalt and I are dappled with light. Although I have lived in Humboldt County […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Look Up: Redwood Skywalk in Progress
A recent walk past Eureka’s Sequoia Park entrance gate and a right turn on the path going behind the zoo revealed what at first looked like Ewoks at work high up in the redwoods. But instead of seeing the fictional species of small mammal bipeds from Endor at work building arboreal huts (see the 1983 […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
North Coast Night Lights: Guardian Giants on the Avenue
The full moon rose over the redwood forests of the Eel River valley, bathing the hillsides in its stark light. It flashed through the redwood tree branches beside me as I drove along the Avenue of the Giants, snaking along the river in and out of great stands of the giant trees. It was after […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Women Behind the Trees
On Nov. 10, 1924, the Pacific Lumber Co. began secretly logging its timberland near the mouth of the South Fork Eel River. The plan was to cut a right-of-way through the forest that would allow the company to reach Bull Creek Flat, about a mile away, and then level thousands of acres of old growth […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
UPDATE: Eureka Mulls Changing Course on Tourism Spending; Visitors Bureau Warns of Dire Consequences
UPDATE: In the wake of the death of Tony Smithers, the Eureka City Council today pulled an agenda item scheduled for Tuesday’s meeting to consider withdrawing its $370,000 contribution to the Eureka-Humboldt Visitors Bureau. PREVIOUS: The city of Eureka is considering drastically changing its approach to attracting tourists — and their dollars — to the […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Standing with Strawberry Rock
If you’ve ever hiked the 1.5 miles up to Strawberry Rock near Trinidad, scaled the onshore sea stack and felt the ocean wind on your cheeks as you surveyed the panoramic view, looking down from atop the forest canopy to the ocean below, you were probably trespassing. That’s long been the sticking point of one […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
North Coast Night Lights: Milky Way over South Fork Eel River — Painting with Light
The word “photography” literally means “light painting” and there is something about taking that idea and actually adding my own strokes of light that appeals to me. Nighttime gives me the opportunity to make images that are illuminated in ways we don’t usually see, whether from moonlight, artificial ambient light sources or light that I […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
North Coast Night Lights: Close Encounters on the Avenue
The Avenue of the Giants is as beautiful a drive as you will find. The groves along its 36-mile course line the Avenue with some of the grandest examples of the tallest trees on Earth, the California coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. Some are thousands of years old. If a disproportionate number of my photographs are […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Let’s Hear it for the Redwoods
Humboldt County’s natural beauty is once again garnering attention with the travel guide Frommer’s giving the region’s tall trees a shout-out in a slideshow and National Geographic featuring the short film Redwood about — as you might guess — Redwood National and State Parks on its website. National Geographic’s team, which is curating cinematic fare […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
The Spirit of a Place
“You’re playing hooky today,” Jerry Rohde’s mom informed him one autumn morning when he was 12. They piled into her 1954 Ford sedan and headed into the San Bernardino Mountains to explore a historic Wild West village she visited when she was a girl. Set in a pine forest surrounded by steep cliffs and rocky […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
A Trip Back in Time
Sixty-five million years ago the Earth changed dramatically when a giant asteroid struck. A mass extinction ensued with dinosaurs disappearing as the planet warmed. Before the asteroid, conifers, like dinosaurs, ruled. Almost unimaginable forests of cone-bearing trees decorated the Earth with as many as 20,000 species, including nine different redwoods. With the global warming that […]