Two of the most magnificent groves have paved trails that make communing with the giants easy. Unlike their cousins, the coast redwoods of California's North Coast, giant sequoias don't make good lumber. Two-thirds of those alive in the 19th century survived the ax, while 95 percent of coast redwoods have been harvested. But while time may have curbed man's desire to chop down the big trees, it hasn't made them any less humbling to behold. In late afternoon, with sunlight filtering through the forest canopy at slanty yellow angles, the ancient, russet trunks and the emerald grass around them glow like stained glass.
Many tourists touching the rough red bark for the first time sink instinctively to their knees.
Tweed has devoted a good part of his life to studying these trees, but says he will always be awed by their mysteries. Our understanding of sequoias is about what you'd get if Martians dropped out of the sky, studied humans for a month or two and went back claiming to know everything about their health and environment. A century's worth of visitors have been similarly stirred. For Dave Phillips, the former cabin boy who jumped straight from Sequoia into the maelstrom of World War II, the trees are a spiritual touchstone. Nothing has ever put me in awe as much as those giant sequoias.