On Walkabout at: The Trees of Mystery, California – Part 2

Prior Posting: Trees of Mystery, California – Part 1

_______________________________________________________________________

After walking around and checking out the amazing trees at the Trees of Mystery park along the northern California coastline we then walked over to catch a ride on the gondola that takes visitors to the top of a high hill that provides sweeping views across redwood country:

The ride up was actually a pretty cool experience and one of the better gondola rides I have been on.  However, it doesn’t top my all time favorite gondola ride in Queenstown, New Zealand though.  Anyway, after about a five minute ride we reached the top of the hill:

The views from the top of the hill were as good as advertised because we had sweeping views in all directions to include being able to see the distant ocean:

One of the park employees on top the hill told us that often times the summit of this hill is shrouded in fog, but we were lucky that today had relatively clear views in all directions of the surrounding redwood country:

In every direction the trees seemed endless, but the areas open to logging was quite obvious in some areas:

From the look out we also had the opportunity to see an osprey that made its home on top of a redwood tree:

If you look closely you can see the osprey in the picture above sitting on a branch on the right side of the tree.  These ospreys are common in the redwood trees and are exclusively fish eaters.  With all the rivers and creeks that run through these hills, these ospreys have plenty of fish to choose from.  After enjoying the views on top of the hill we then got back on the gondola for the ride down the hill.

Now we began to walk on the trail that would take us back to the park’s entrance.  Along the way we saw yet another example of how resilient these redwood trees are at sprouting new life even when the tree falls over:

The final portion of the walk was through an area that a local artist has displayed a number of wood carvings depicting Paul Bunyan’s story:

Of course there was a big wood carving of a bear as well that are supposed to frequent these woods:

The trail then exits into the visitor center and gift shop that surprisingly had a really nice Native-American display:

This display was a welcome bonus for someone like myself that is interested in Native-American history.  I spent about an hour in the visitor center reading all the displays about the local tribes as well as about Native-Americans in general in the United States.

Overall we spent about 4 hours in the park and had an absolute great time.  It was definitely worth the $14 admission fee to get in and is a great compliment to visiting Redwood National Park down the road.

Next Posting: Redwood National Park