Drury-Chaney Loop and Grieg-French-Bell Loop

Humboldt Redwoods State Park

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Humboldt Redwoods has some long trails and great redwoods along Bull Creek, but I decided to take a day to see things on the auto tour along Avenue of the Giants. My first stop was a pair of loops at the north end. I must admit, my motivation to stop in this area was that I found out there is an "albino" tree nearby, but I wandered the advertised routes before going after that special treat. The Drury-Chaney Loop is a stop on the tour and is an accessible lollipop of a loop trail. It is 0.8 miles to the loop and 2.4 miles for the round trip. I found the curves banked so much it put me in mind of some rough racing event and one tree was down nearly to the loop, but a hardy wheeled traveler might still be able to make it. Hopefully soon without the tree.

00: start of trail with signs — Signs and a picnic table at the start of the trail.

01: trees and logs — Just inside the trees, the gravel path executes some little, high banked, curves.

These auto tour stops include interpretive signs such as the one seen on the right in the first picture. This one was talking about how the park has been buying historic tree covered areas and replanting them since the 1980s. While the first few trees by the road, covered in a bit too much ivy, don't give a very good impression, that's not what this trail is going through. The grove itself was dedicated a little earlier than that and there are some pretty big trees within.

02: tree bark to high, short branches — Looking up along one rather bulky tree with short, high branches.

03: fat trees by a wide trail — The wide trail laces between some more big trees.

I went clockwise when I got to the loop. A tiny stream runs through the forest and the trail immediately crossed it. For most of the loop, that stream discourages anyone deciding to shortcut the route.

05: bridge over dark pools of water among the green — A bridge crosses the stream where wide pools make it look a little bit larger.

06: path on the far side of a line of water — The returning path on the far side of the stream.

07: tall tree with short, curving branches — A tree with branches that wrap around it like fans.

After an hour the sun was getting high enough to actually light the forest some. It had already been up more than two hours.

08: light in the tree tops — Even with a little more light, it is still a very dark forest.

09: stream and meadow — The stream pools past the roots of a fallen giant and a small meadow among the trees.

10: white wood showing down the side — A tree stripped of bark top to bottom by some ancient calamity.

My next stop a short way further along the road at another turnout. This one is not a stop on the auto tour and not paved, but the park map shows a smaller loop trail. This is not an accessible trail and seemed to be more of a free for all. I really tried to loop around it as prescribed and did encounter some interpretive signage, but after that, things just fell apart.

13: big trees and memorial grove sign — Signs marking the grove and the dividing point for the loop trail.

14: small and large trails — Thin trail to the right or thick to the left. I took thick and tried to stay to the most traveled, least obstacled route.

15: tree with bark stripped from the bottom to the height of a room — A wronged giant with interpretive signage below.

The sign calls this a girdled tree and explains that the tree had its bark stripped to be reassembled at the Epworth League convention for an information booth. The stripping goes halfway around the tree, so not actually girdled, and the tree still lives. I found it interesting that half of the stripping shows bark regrowing over the exposed wood from the top. It was done in 1901 and the tree has put on over a foot of bark at the edge of the cut.

18: bark coming back — The bark reclaiming its position on the wronged tree.

When I got back to the start, I made a second attempt to follow the loop from the right hand side, but this was even less effective. People go everywhere and they do it a lot.

19: big trees and sorrel — More trails through the sorrel at the base of big trees in many bark colors.

Just a little further south in the next turn out, it was time to go find that albino redwood tree. I found the location via geocaching. (GC190X6 actually has waypoints for two of these trees.)

20: tree with white leaves — The first look at the albino redwood tree.

There are actually two of them at this location. Both are root sprout from a much larger tree, so it is easy to see where they are getting their nutrients since they lack chlorophyll. They have a very scruffy look of growth as though they are desperately trying to get something out that works, leaving a lot of dead twigs within. This growth pattern can sometimes be seen with green root sprout too, so that may not be the impetus.

21: two of these trees — There are actually two albino trees coming up as root sprouts from this one.

22: white against a green forest — The ineffective leaves against the green of the rest of the forest.

24: white and green — One of the albino trees with two of its greener root sprout siblings.

25: white and red and dead twigs in the albino tree — Details of the twigs, which can be white or red or dead.

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