In early February 2017, it took a team of seven trail crew members more than three days to remove a particularly hefty redwood (typically, a removal only requires three to five trail crew members). When redwood trees fall over trails and park structures, the rough and tumble crew of the NPS trail team comes in.ĭepending on the size of the tree, removing a fallen tree that’s obstructing a path can take 10 minutes-or multiple days. You can get a nine-second glimpse at the epic thuds a falling redwood makes on NPS' website.īearing witness to such a natural phenomenon is one thing-and dealing with the aftermath is another. “I can see why one of John Muir’s goals was to be in a forest during a winter storm, to hear the trees not only sway and creak, but also branches and trees falling,” Monroe explains. In fact, she considers it a privilege to experience a storm in the famous redwood grove. So it’s really a redwood symphony out there of creaks and groans, cracks and sharp thuds, and it’s very, very dramatic.”Īfter more than 35 years on the job, this awesome scene doesn’t unnerve Monroe. “If a tree falls, other trees catch it, and sometimes it breaks off other branches, and sometimes it skidders and scratches its way down the bark of other trees-and sometimes it takes other trees down.
“There’s often the distinct sound of cracking and crashing-and a redwood takes a long time to fall because the canyon is narrow,” says Mia Monroe, community liaison in Marin County for NPS. But what happens when a coast redwood-the tallest living thing on the planet-comes crashing down? Some Douglas firs and California bay laurels certainly have succumbed to the stormy winter weather.
Wind, soil saturation and destabilization, the rerouting of Redwood Creek (which runs through Muir Woods), and fire are all suspects when trees topple in the national monument. “That’s been going on all winter-or at least when the heavy rains started.” “We’ve been responding to fallen trees a couple times per week, I’d say,” says Corbett Robinson, a trails maintenance supervisor with the National Park Service (NPS).
With winter storms buffeting the Bay Area, about 10 to 12 towering coast redwoods in Muir Woods National Monument toppled over two months during the winter of 2016-17, according to trail crew members in the Golden Gate National Parks. Editor's note: This story was originally published in early 2017.