September 22, 2011

Armstrong Woods

While we were in flitting about the north parts of California we heard about Armstrong Woods and decided to stop. Everyone had been urging us to go see Muir Woods (just north of SF) and we had that on the agenda, but figured… why not stop here since we’re driving right by.

It’s a beautiful place. There were people, but it wasn’t crowded at all. There were paved walking paths and then some unpaved paths too. One could spend many hours hiking there. Here are a few of the many many photos I took.

This is called (according to the tour guides at Korbel where you will see this too) a fairy circle. When a redwood is cut down and the stump is left in the ground, it sends out shoots all around the base and a ring of trees grows.

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I saw this gentleman walking along and decided it would be nice to have a person in the shot to give some sort of scale to the trees. 

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The next is the Parson Jones tree. It’s the second oldest (the pic of the the oldest tree didn’t turn out quite so well). It’s 310 ft tall, 13.8 ft in diameter and approximately 1300 years old.

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This a cross section of a tree that fell during the 1906 SF earthquake. The various plaques show important dates in history.

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Down to the date it sprang into being.

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There are even a few root balls on display.

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And naturally I had to find one tree that I could lean against and look straight up.

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That is certainly not all, so if you ever are north of SF - do look for this place. We passed on Muir Woods because it was so extremely crowded we would have had to park nearly a mile down the road and walk back. Armstrong was far better if only because it was less crowded.

Posted by: Teresa in Photos at 10:43 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 How beautiful!  I love Redwoods and you certainly captured them in all their glory!  Especially like the '948 Germination of this tree'.  Oh, wow....!

Posted by: pam at September 23, 2011 10:01 AM (VZULe)

2 First an apology: my blogroll hasn't updated your titles, so I had no idea you'd been posting recently. (#@$&*@#!!! Blogger...)

Second: awesome photographs of those beautiful trees, and the garden shots in the previous post are great, too.

Posted by: Rev. Paul at September 23, 2011 11:23 AM (0DZhf)

3 Beautiful pics of those wonderful redwoods!  There is something magical when you are standing in the midst of those old giants.  I love Muir Woods, have never been to Armstrong Woods.  I think that I must visit there next time!

Posted by: Mary at September 23, 2011 10:19 PM (0+wct)

4 Beloved Wife & I stopped to see some redwoods last time we were in SF. Not sure if it was the same place you stopped. Aside from the trees, what I remember most were the twisty, narrow, hairpin roads I had to drive to get there.

I think BW had her eyes closed on most of those. I envied her.

Posted by: Harvey at September 24, 2011 07:04 PM (pTueD)

5 That would be Muir Woods.  I drove that road.  It's a bit on the twisty side and makes one concentrate a bit... but at least the other drivers stay in their own lane... that never happens out here in the Boston area.  LOL.

Posted by: Teresa at September 26, 2011 08:29 PM (jxg4K)

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