Location: Del Norte and Humboldt Counties, CA Map
Area: 133,000 acres (540 km2)
Official site
Redwood National Park is spread over Del Norte and Humboldt Counties
of California in United States. This nature reserve covers an area
of 133,000 acres (540 km2). Redwood National Park was established on
October 2, 1968 by the decree of President Lyndon Johnson. It
encompasses the territory of 23,500 hectares of three combined
national park: Jedediah Smith, Del Norte and Prairie Creek. Another
400 hectares of Redwood Creek was added to reduce soil erosion that
started on private lands and began to creep toward protected
biosphere.
If you get here and find that the landscape of
Redwood National Park seems awfully familiar you shouldn't be
surprised. This protected area was used to film two episodes of
Stars Wars, where it portrayed as planet Endor. Giant sequoias, lush
vegetation and magnificent landscape made it a great location.
Sequoia or Redwood is obviously the most recognizable tree in
Redwood National Park. Some of these plants reach a height of 150
meters and about 10 meters in diameter. Many of plants are over
thousand years old, although the oldest sequoia was established to
be approximately 2300- 2800 years old.
There is no entrance fee for Redwood National Park. The nearby state parks - Jedediah Smith, Del Norte Coast, & Prairie Creek Redwoods - charge entry fees of $5 per day.
Hiouchi Information Center, ☎ +1 707 458-3209. US
Highway 199 at Hiouchi. Open from mid-June to mid-September,
9AM-5PM. Closed in the winter. Ranger-led walks, junior ranger
programs, and evening campfire programs held in Jedediah Smith
Redwoods State Park, across the street. Programs occur during the
summer season. Redwood National and State Parks' Junior Ranger
activity newspapers are available here. Inside: Coast redwood,
wildlife, and preservation history exhibits. 12-minute film on the
redwoods. Outside: "Trees of the coast redwood forest" walk with
waysides. Book store, picnic area, and restrooms.
1 Jedediah
Smith Visitor Center, ☎ +1 707 465-2144. US Highway 101 at Hiouchi.
Open from May 20 to September 30 9AM-5PM. Open winters F Sa Su
10AM-6PM. Closed in the winter. Ranger-led walks, junior ranger
programs, and evening campfire programs occur during the summer.
Redwood National and State Parks' Junior Ranger activity newspapers
are available here. Coast redwood, history, and wildlife exhibits.
Nature museum, gift shop, campground, dump station, picnic area, and
restrooms. Many hiking trails start here.
Crescent City
Information Center, 1111 Second St, ☎ +1 707 465-7306. Crescent
City. Open March - October from 9SM-5PM. Open November - February
from 9AM to 4PM. Closures: Thanksgiving, December 25th, and New
Year's Day. Junior Ranger activity newspapers are available here.
Gift shop, picnic area, and restrooms.
2 Prairie Creek Visitor
Center, ☎ +1 707 465-7354. Just off US Highway 101, along Newton B.
Drury Scenic Parkway. Open daily March - October from 9AM-5PM. Open
Wed-Sunday November - February from 10AM-5PM. Closures:
Thanksgiving, December 25th, New Year's Eve, and Easter. Ranger-led
walks, junior ranger programs, and evening campfire programs held in
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park during the summer season. Redwood
National and State Parks' Junior Ranger activity newspapers are
available here. Coast redwood forest, wildlife, and history
exhibits. Video room available. Nature museum, gift shop,
campground, dump station, picnic area, and restrooms. 70 miles of
trails begin here.
3 Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center, ☎ +1 707
465-7765. US Highway 101 at Orick. Open March - October from
9AM-5PM. Open November - February from 9AM-4PM. Closures:
Thanksgiving, December 25th, and New Year's Day. Patio talks and
coast walks occur during the summer. Redwood National and State
Parks' Junior Ranger activity newspapers are available here. Many
exhibits in the visitor center on coast redwoods and watersheds: new
technologies! Video room with many films available. Gift shop,
picnic area, and restrooms.
Today's indigenous peoples such as the Yurok, Tolowa, Karok, Chilula,
and Wiyot all have historical connections to the area, and a number of
Native Americans still inhabit the park to this day. Archaeological
research shows that they came to this area 3,000 years ago. An 1852
census determined that the Yuroks were the largest with 55 villages and
an estimated population of 2,500. They use an abundant source of
rosewood, which is easily cut into planks to make building materials for
houses and boats. To build the house, wooden planks are built close
together on a small groove, the top is tied with leather and held in
place by supporting beams. The planks of the fir tree form a roof with a
gentle slope.
Before Jedediah Smith's arrival in 1828, no
explorer of European descent was known to have investigated the inland
area deep in the coast thoroughly and immediately. The discovery of gold
along the Trinity River in 1850 led to a small gold rush in California.
This brought miners to the area and many stayed on the coast after
failing to get rich there. This quickly led to conflict, including
conflict with the natives, which was already intense and many massacres
took place. By 1895, only a third of the Yuroks remained in some
villages. And by 1919, almost all the members of the Chilula tribe had
died or were assimilated with other tribes. Miners began harvesting
Redwood for construction when the gold rush ended, some of whom later
returned to logging, felling giant Redwoods. Initially more than
2,000,000 acres (8,100 km2) of the California and southwestern Oregon
coasts were covered with Redwoods, but by 1910, when the area was
declining rapidly to alarming levels, conservationists conservation has
just begun to find ways to preserve the remaining area. In 1911,
California Congressman of the United States House of Representatives,
John E. Raker, became the first politician to propose the creation of a
national park to protect the redwoods. However, no further action was
taken by Congress at that time.
The conservation of the Red Fir
in California is credited with the most important contributions of the
Boone and Crockett Club. The Red Fir Rescue League was then founded in
1918 by Boone and Crockett members Madison Grant, John C. Merriam, Henry
Fairfield Osborn and later Frederick Russell Burnham. The acquisition of
the properties was initially made by club members Stephen Mather and
William Kent. In 1921, Boone and Crockett member John C. Phillips
donated $32,000 to purchase land to establish the Raynal Bolling
Memorial in Humboldt Redwood State Park. This is considered timely as
the route 101 under construction at that time intended to pass through
here did not damage the red pine trees in this area. Using appropriate
funding provided initially by Humboldt County and later by the state of
California, the Red Fir Rescue Federation has managed and utilized to
protect densely wooded areas and certain forests containing trees in the
1920s. When California established a system of state parks beginning in
1927, the three conserved areas of Redwood became Prairie Creek Redwood,
Del Norte Redwood Coast, and Jedediah Smith State Parks. Redwood.
Humboldt Redwood State Park is the fourth state park and the largest
Redwood conservancy state park, but it is not part of the Redwood State
and National Parks system. Due to the high demand for timber during the
Second World War and the subsequent construction boom in the 1950s, the
creation of a national park was delayed. Efforts by the Red Red
Redemption Federation, the environmental organization Sierra Club, and
the National Geographic Society to establish a national park began in
the early 1960s. After intensely lobbying Congress, Strongly, the bill
establishing Redwood National Park was signed by President Lyndon B.
Johnson on October 2, 1968. The Redwood Rescue Federation and other
organizers purchased 100,000 acres (400 km2) to merged into existing
state parks. This was followed by 48,000 acres (190 km2), which was
added to Redwood National Park in 1978. However, only one-fifth of the
original original Red Fir forest remains. This extension protects
Redwood Creek's watershed from the harmful effects of logging outside
the park. By 1994, the national park and state parks were combined to
become the Redwood National Park and State Park.
Redwood State
and National Park was subsequently declared a World Heritage Site on
September 5, 1980. The Commission recorded 50 prehistoric archaeological
sites with a history of up to 4,500 years. It also cites ongoing
research in the national park carried out by researchers from Humboldt
State University. The national park is part of a larger natural area of
the California Coast Range that was designated a World Biosphere Reserve
on June 30, 1983. It is overseen by the Great Nature Conservation
System. study California.
The national park has served as a set
for many films. The landscape over the moon forest Endor in Star Wars:
Episode VI – Return of the Jedi was filmed at Tall Trees Redwood Grove,
north of Humboldt County, although much of the film's footage was taken.
in the woods near the town of Smith River, California. Or the scene from
The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Outbreak, shot near Prairie Creek
Redwood State Park and Patrick's Point State Park.
The park's headquarters are in Crescent, California, with a customer
service office located in Arcata and an operations center in Orick.
However, a lack of capital prevented major improvements. Many forestry
companies have replanted previously logged forest areas with many
non-native tree species. Coastal areas including sand dunes and coastal
grasslands have been invaded by alien species, partly due to wildfires
that occurred until the 1980s. Fire prevention plans allow
implementation. controlled fires as a method to return the national park
land to its original state. Since the Redwoods were harvested, some
inaccessible areas have also been infiltrated, resulting in many large
old-growth forests being isolated from each other, sometimes many miles
apart. In this case, it will take decades for old-growth forests to grow
back, no matter how much money it takes to restore the ecosystem.
The park has converted some of the former logging trails into
beautiful eco-tours. These roads do not meet current safety standards,
but assistance to improve them is not currently available. The structure
of the national park, as well as the visitor center and staff housing,
also needed upgrading to accommodate the growing demand. The park's
staff is tasked with conducting air and water quality surveys,
monitoring endangered and threatened species, and working closely with
the California Coast National Monument, a The area is administered by
the United States Bureau of Land Management. In 2005, the park expanded
to a 25,000-acre (100 km2) area of the Mill Creek Basin.
Plants
Redwood National Park and State Park is a most important
protected area of the Northern California Coastal Forest ecoregion. It
is estimated that about 2,000,000 acres (8,100 km2) are covered by
ancient redwoods on the northern coast of California. Already 96% of the
area is exploited, and almost half of the remaining area (45%) is
protected in Redwood National and State Parks. The total area of the
national and state parks is 38,982 acres (157.75 km2), of which the
national park is 19,640 acres (79.5 km2) and the state parks are 19,342
acres (78.27 km2). . Persimmon trees have grown on the northern coast of
California for at least 20 million years and are related to many tree
species that existed 160 million years ago.
The original range of
the Red Fir extends from the northern coast of California to the
southern coast of Oregon. This tree is closely related to the giant
cycads of central California and beyond to the yew trees, which are
native to China's Sichuan-Hubei. Coastal persimmons are the tallest
trees on the planet. As of September 2006, the tallest tree in the park
and the world's tallest tree is the Hyperion tree at 379.1 feet (115.5
m), followed by the Helios and Icarus trees at 376.3 feet, respectively.
(114.7 m) and 371.2 feet (113.1 m).
Before September 2006, the
world's tallest known tree, the 370-foot (110 m) Stratosphere Giant, was
discovered in July 2000 in Humboldt Redwood State Park. For many years,
another Redwood tree known simply as the Tall Tree located in Prairie
Creek Redwood State Park measured 367.8 feet (112.1 m) tall but the top
10 feet (3.0 m) was measured. reported dead in the 1990s. Another tree
was discovered in 1991 at 372.04 feet (113.40 m). Only the giant Sequoia
trees have more mass. The largest fir tree by volume is Lost Monarch at
42,500 cubic feet (1,205 m³) located in Jedediah Smith Redwood State
Park. These coastal persimmons have an average age of 500-700 years, and
some have been recorded as being up to 2,000 years old, making them some
of the oldest plants in the world. They are highly resistant to disease,
due to their thick protective coat and high tannin content. Red pine
prefers sloping terrain, slightly inland and near water sources such as
rivers and streams.
The fir tree develops huge branches from
organic matter that accumulates deep in the ground and can support the
large branches that grow normally at 150 feet (46 meters). Recently,
scientists have discovered that these trees also grow on flat ground.
Soil mats provide habitat for invertebrates, mollusks, earthworms, and
tailed amphibians. During the dry season, some tree tops die off, but
the tree does not die completely. Instead, persimmons have evolved
mechanisms to regenerate new stems from other branches. These sub-stems
also develop root systems in the soil that accumulate nutrients and
water. This helps the water to be delivered to the highest places of the
plant. Fog in the coastal forests also provides up to a third of the
annual water requirement of the persimmons.
Some other tall trees
commonly found in the forests of Redwood are the 300-foot (91 m) coastal
Douglas-fir. Sitka spruce is found along the coast and is better adapted
to the salty air from the sea than other species. Some other common
species include Pacific Heather, Oregon Maple, California Laurel and Red
Alder General.[30] Blueberries, Blackberries, and Dandelions are
low-growing shrubs that provide a food source for many animals. The
California rhododendron (Azalea) is a common shrub in the national park,
especially in old-growth forests. Ferns grow in abundance, especially
near rivers, streams, and wet areas. Fern Canyon is a popular canyon in
Prairie Creek Redwood State Park that ranges from 30 to 50 feet (9.1 to
15.2 m) deep with "walls" completely covered with ferns.
The ecology of the Redwood National Park and State Park preserves a
number of rare animals. Many ecosystems are present including
coastlines, rivers, grasslands, and dense forests. The endangered
Northern White Goby (Eucyclogobius newberryi) lives near the Pacific
coast. The national bird of the United States, the Bald Eagle, which
lives near water bodies to hunt, is also listed as endangered by the
state of California. Some other threatened species include Chinook
Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Northern spotted owl (Strix
occidentalis caurina), Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus).
More than 40 species of mammals have been recorded in the park,
including the North American Black Bear, the Coyote, the North American
Cougar, the Bobtail, the North American Beaver, the North American River
Otter, the Black-tailed Deer , Gray elk. Off the coast and on the small
rocky islands off the coast are the presence of California Sea Lions,
Steller Sea Lions, Harbor Seals. Gray whales and dolphins are sometimes
seen. The Roosevelt deer is the most common large mammal in the park.
They were once on the verge of extinction but have been protected and
successfully bred, now concentrated in the area south of the Klamath
River. Many species of smaller mammals live in the high forest canopy.
Many species of bats, such as the Great Brown Bat and the Douglas
Squirrel, the Northern Flying Squirrel spend most of their lives on tree
branches.