Roaming through the redwoods

Two jovial women bounded down a soggy trail with a question: "Where's the Big Tree?"

"Look up," I suggested.

They barely concealed smirks. The hikers wanted to see the featured tree in the ancient California forest of Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. It's all about branding. Label something "Big Tree" and wait for them to come.

The women didn't realize they stood in the shadow of the tree famously featured in a National Geographic photo spread. Almost everyone traversing the labyrinth of trails here has no clue when blowing past one of the world's most legendary groves, and that's the way botanists, park rangers and others in the know like it.

They worry that too much human traffic could damage the shallow root system that keeps the redwoods upright for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. No one knows what the fallout might be from such disruption.

Redwoods reside in a narrow swath of coast land from the northern fringes of Big Sur to just inside the Oregon border. They stand within 30 miles of the Pacific, thriving on heavy annual rainfall and thick, coastal summertime fog.

For some travelers, redwoods are nothing more than a quick, scenic detour along U.S. Highway 101. For me, they're a destination. Coast redwoods have been a fascination since childhood because they personify California's ethereal, mysterious beauty.

During the last week of April I met friends from Washington to explore the world's densest old-growth redwood forests, in Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

I arrived at Redwood National and State Parks with insider information on where to see some magnificent specimens not on the map but romanticized in Richard Preston's book "The Wild Trees."

None was more impressive than those in Atlas Grove, where the women scurried away in pursuit of the "Big Tree." This 2½-acre grove of 1,500- to 2,000-year-old trees is among the tiny percentage of the world's great redwood forests that have not been logged. The small group of coast redwoods here have been climbed and studied extensively by Humboldt State University botanists. One of the grove's features is a tree called Illuvatar, a name Sillett borrowed from a J.R.R. Tolkien character. Botanists often name the big trees they discover, a practice Sillett apparently regrets because it has fostered growing interest in trying to find them.

Illuvatar is the third-largest coast redwood known, 20 feet in diameter and standing 320 feet tall. It reportedly contains up to 220 reiterated trunks -- one of the most intricate tree structures known. Illuvatar seems to sprout a secondary forest from its long limbs when visitors look straight up its massive trunk. It's no wonder the tree became the source of a digitally stitched National Geographic photo in the magazine's October 2009 edition.

While Preston glamorizes the trees he describes, it's understandable why an effort has been made to not publicize their whereabouts. Just look at the carvings on some fallen giants along the path. One of the worst examples of defacement can be found in the parking lot at Redwood National Park. A living tree in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove has the scars of a chain saw slash from 1994 -- believed to be a logger's act of protest.

People also are protective because only a fraction of the old-growth forests survived the onslaught of 20th century logging.

Visitors don't need to know the trees' names to enjoy the ones that remain. One great aspect of coast redwoods -- Sequoia sempervirens -- is how accessible they are.

Tree hunters don't even need to leave their cars to see some behemoths. But passers-by who have a little time can reap big rewards by taking a half-hour stroll on any of the flat, marked trails just off Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway in Prairie Creek park. (Stop in the visitor center at the park's south end for information.)

The world's tallest tree, however, is accessible only on foot and not easy to find with no signpost drawing attention to it. I didn't spend time looking for the 379-foot Hyperion in Redwood National Park east of Orick. I didn't feel the urge after bearing witness to so many other giants.