The view from the Hillside Trail — looking down and across into the redwood crowns, and how these coast redwoods relate to their giant sequoia cousins in the Sierra.
Up here on the Hillside Trail, stop and look out across the canyon, because this is the view worth the climb. Down on the main trail you could only ever see the trunks. From up here you're level with the middle of the forest, looking across into the crowns — and you can finally take in a whole redwood from its roots to its canopy, and see just how these trees stack up against each other and fill the sky.
While you've got the long view, let me clear up a common mix-up. These coast redwoods are not the same tree as the giant sequoias you may have seen in the Sierra Nevada, over by Yosemite — they're cousins. The coast redwood, the one all around you, is the taller of the two: skinnier, fog-loving, the world's tallest tree. The giant sequoia inland is shorter but far more massive — the bulkiest living thing on Earth by sheer volume. Tallest versus heaviest; two branches of the same ancient family, which spread across much of the whole Northern Hemisphere long ago and now clings on only in California. You're looking at the survivors of a dynasty.
And take in how quiet and empty this side is compared to the main drag. Most visitors never leave the pavement, so the Hillside Trail hands you the grove almost to yourself. Keep following it down and along — the trail will bend back toward the creek and the entrance, and Boone's got one more tale for the road as we go.
Photo: Meburian · CC BY-SA 3.0
