117 



and a lot of people miss it. But that's where you'll see the 

 real biggies." 



The S1I5 million highway bypass, which was finally 

 opened in 1992, was an ecological disaster, locals con- 

 tend. Sixteen old-growth redwoods-the very trees the 

 highway was built to save-weredeared from the state 

 park's right-of-way. Streams were rechanneled, disturb- 

 ing fish migration, and winter rains washed out excava- 

 tion and caused landslides. 



Feelings about the park have been imusually intense 

 because redwood-growing land, as opposed to that of 

 Douglas fir and other species, is sharply limited. In the 

 United States redwoods grow only in a very narrow 500- 

 mile-long strip of coastal California and extreme south- 

 western Oregon, nurtured by heavy winter rains and by 

 drip from the fogs that shroud the coast in summer. 

 I Timber companies see no reason not to act. "I get very 

 ! frustrated when people talk about forest preservation," 



i Louisiana-Pacific's Chris Rowney says. "There is a per- 

 : ception of the forest as something different from what it 

 ; really is. Trees are biological beings, like people. They 

 have a definite life span. Like people, they reach a cer- 

 tain point in their life cvcle when they've matured and 

 aren't reallv growing anxmore. .\ 300-year-old redwood 

 is actuallv rotting more than it is putting on wood. Peo- 

 ple talk as if all the redwoods were 2.000 years old. A 

 700-year-old tree is a rarity. .\n old-growth forest is at 

 best a static forest." 



Garv R\ nearson of the XR.MC adds, "People want to 

 lock up the forests and expect them to stay just as they 

 are. But forests don't stay 'just as they are.' They are al- 

 ways changing. Trees blow down, they are struck by 

 lightning, they topple over from old age. In 1991 the Dy- 

 ersville Giant, one of the most famous trees up here, fell 

 over. It took several other trees with it. Young shoots will 

 sprout up where those fell, and we will have a forest mo- 

 saic-voung trees and older trees together. That's the life 

 cycle of the forest." 



But others maintain that the area's future lies in pre- 

 serving trees, not cutting them. Laminated-wood tech- 

 nologv- makes the monster redwood beams and girders 

 of the past obsolete. Steel, plastics and composite mate- 

 rials are taking the place of wood. According to this 

 point of view, trving to keep the timber industn,' afloat is 

 like subsidizing the buggv' whip industiy The big trees 

 are the Nonh Coast's greatest assei-but as an attraction. 



