Calaveras Big Trees State Park

The day after Thanksgiving is commonly thought of as a stress-filled, hustle-bustle full of discounts, deals and fights over this year's biggest, shiniest new toy.  The kickoff to the holiday season is often filled with anything but cheer and goodwill towards fellow man.  Not my ideal way to spend any day, let alone that one.



We decided to escape the hordes of shoppers and take a hike.  We drove up to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, only to find that not only we unable to find solitude (and honestly, we didn't expect to, not at Big Trees), but they were having a sale, too, at the gift shop.  But like the insightful ranger who welcomed us to the park so perfectly put it, we hadn't come up there for the shopping.  Not hardly.  I started getting a little nervous.  My peaceful day was appearing to evaporate before me. 

That's plenty of people for me...

However, we were already there so we took off for the trail, mixing up a little hot chocolate from a thermos we had packed before setting out.  It was pretty well-populated in the parking lot - in fact, we were hard pressed to find a parking space - but soon after we started down the trail, the crowds began to thin out.  

Our first stop was at the Discovery Tree, which is a big dance floor - er, tree stump.  This gigantic tree was felled in the late eighteen hundreds and the remaining stump had been used as a dance floor.  The park maintains a stairway to allow visitors to climb to the top and walk along the dance floor.  Of course, we had to climb up as well, and stop someone and ask them to take our picture.  

The park offers an accompanying guide in the form of a pamphlet that they sell for fifty cents at a kiosk along the trail.  The guide is numbered and matches up with numbered signs that dot the path from beginning to end.  

Reading the guide and walking slowly along the trail made for a relaxing afternoon away - for the most part - from mobs of people.  True, we were in no way the only folks on the path, but we felt neither rushed nor crowded at any time.  Generally every group minded their own business, politely crossing paths as we all marveled in a collective silence at the impressive feats of nature that stood before us. 

Branches of the yew tree - The park is
the only place these trees and
the giant sequoias grow together.

The pamphlet offered loads of interesting information, including the general age of the trees (in the thousands of years), their relative size (they have the largest mass of any living thing on earth) and some surprising oddities (the trees' bark can be three feet thick and is nearly fireproof).  Sure, a simple online search will tell you the same thing, but there's something different about hearing it while standing face to face with something so impressive.  It felt like staring into the past, knowing these trees had grown during so many human events.  They have stood in the same place through crusades, world explorations, industrial revolutions and, possibly most dangerous of all, tourism.  To say I felt small is an understatement. 

Perspective

We wound our way through about three miles of trail while dodging mud puddles, snow and ice in some places.  The trail is maintained, with wooden "curbs" on either side, but with so many people traipsing through the park that day, it was bound to be a little squishy in some spots.  For the most part, however, the park is pretty accessible and therefore a good fit for just about anyone who would like to venture out and get some great outdoors experience, no matter their level of expertise.  

The park holds many surprises and "novelty" trees, such as the fallen tree that is now hollow and part of the trail runs its length.  There is also a tree, barely hanging on to life, that has a hole cut in its base large enough to drive a small car through.  The biggest victim of exhibitionism, however, is the Mother of the Forest, a tree that at one time dwarfed other trees in the grove and was over three hundred feet tall.  The bark was stripped from the trunk and shown as a tourist attraction along th east coast for those curious about the trees.  However, when a fire swept through the forest, the Mother of the Forest, without her protective bark, was lost.  It still stands as an austere, blackened trunk alongside the trail, now only rising to a height of about one hundred feet. 

Many of the trees were so impressive to early pioneer settlers that they were given names. 

Meet Abe Lincoln

It was a pretty nice day - we traded in the long lines for the occasional passersby and the fluorescent glow of shopping malls for bright sunlight.  I think we may have stumbled on to a new tradition.  

Even the drive home was beautiful.