Wherein Moominmama communes with the world's tallest trees...

Moominmama is camped in a shady grove called the Mill Creek Campground in the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. When I first arrived and strolled around the campgrounds, I was on the lookout for old growth redwoods, the impossibly tall trees for which this area is known.

All I found were stumps, giant garage-sized stumps with younger redwoods growing right up next to them. They looked like little families gathered around their felled ancestor.

Turns out that's not far from the truth. This part of the redwoods was once heavily logged, and Mill Creek is called that because it once held a mill. Because the redwood tree is incredibly dense at the base, loggers set up platforms attached further up the tree, 10-to-12 feet up, where they could more easily drill, saw and chop. 

The cut-off stump responds to the insult by sending out basal sprouts, which grow into genetic copies of the original but still rely on the roots of the mother tree. So the adjacent trees gathered near the stump were in fact clones and still connected, literally.

It's the intensive logging of these great trees starting in the mid 1800s that generated the outrage that ultimately led to the preservation of areas to the north and south of Del Norte, including the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park (founded in 1929) where old-growth timber remains.

A hike up the Boy Scout Trail in Jedediah brought me past many large trees and to a giant specimen called the Boy Scout Tree, which appears to be two trees that grew together merging into a single enormous base.

The trees' ability to interconnect is vital to their survival. Like the Giant Sequoias, they have shallow root systems, but these roots extend out and interweave, not just with other redwoods, but other root systems of all kinds.

Traipsing on the wet Boy Scout Trail, these roots are exposed and clearly holding the remaining dirt from being washed away. They were also frequently providing the only dry spots on the trail to place one's feet. 

Recent reading has taught Moominmama about the complex interconnections under the surface: the roots and rhizomes and bacteria and microscopic life that communicate and move nutrients between plants.

Among other things, one tree, learning that a fellow is in distress, can send water and nutrients over. 

Apparently the overstory is similar, where aerosols or pheromones from one tree top can send messages to the others.

I felt apologetic tromping over all these roots and their filaments: pardon me! excuse me! 

On a new trail further into the park, Grove of Titans, the park service has built up the dirt and installed retaining walls that protect the roots from our footsteps. Where you enter the most sensitive area, they've built a raised walkway with metal grates that let water, air and light through so you can walk without disturbing the earth. 

This is where it feels like a happy ecosystem. Not a single large tree standing alone, but many large trees towering overhead together. They seem content and complete. You can't help but want to slow down and breathe deep. 

In an area known as Stout Grove (it's not the trees that are stout; it's the name of the land donors), the trees really block the light on the forest floor so there is little brush besides large ferns and clover (the clover turns out to be redwood sorrel!). Even though I saw more people on this short hike, they were all subdued.

The grove feels like a cathedral, and we instinctively lower our voices if we speak at all. They feel like something holy. These trees are the world's best at carbon capture and store more carbon than any other forest on the planet.

Coastal Redwoods (sequoia sempervirens) can grow to be as tall as 380 feet, 26 feet across (some stumps have measured over 30 feet) and live 2,200 years or more. 

Their relatives the Giant Sequoias (sequoiadendron giganteum) are not quite as tall, but can reach 300 feet, with a 30-foot or greater girth, and live to 3,200 years or more. Even when they fall, the can live on through their clones or by feeding the bountiful plant life from their decay. 

The genuine old-growth redwood environment of Grove of Titans and Stout Grove reminded Moominmama of the illustrations in her Moomintroll books, where trees and plant life are complex and full of personality. Trees tower, bushes, bugs and grasses crowd together. Pears drop from trees and roots entwine. Nature is ever present in the books, at times protective and at other times, ominous.

It came then as no surprise to learn that Finland, where the Moomins are from, has the most old growth forest of any nation. In the meantime, California is doing what it can to protect what it has and restore what's been damaged. 

Of the 120,000 acres now protected, 80,000 acres was once logged so there is much work to do. With all the families out in my campground, I can hope this is a project that will carry on across generations!