Tales
Hazard Trees
As COVID-19 continued to lay waste to our summer plans, cancelling our Berkeley Family Camp annual tradition of 10 years running, we looked to find another way to connect with the friends we had planned on camping with over the 4th of July.
After days of searching for alternatives in June, the state park system reopened its campsites to overnight campers. We jumped on it, booking adjacent spots at a popular site in the Sierras. Plans were made, friends joined in, meals were planned. Then with 1 week to go, Lynn received an email from the park system: The park was closed for a month due to “Hazard Trees.” Seriously, hazard trees?
A few days of renewed scrambling landed us with the new destination of Humboldt Redwood State Park near the Oregon border. When the weekend came in July it was truly majestic. Martha/Fernando, Will/Rachel, Ethan/Jane, and Scott/Riva all the way up from Southern California. All of us camped directly amidst towering 200 foot redwoods, eating communal meals while staying physically distanced and trying to keep the masks on.
The girls and the 10 kids went giggle-biking around the campsite roads, while the adults caught up. Man was it great to be together in person again. Our last full day we decided to spend on an epic 5-hour bike ride along a ridge top and then 3000 feet down a steep winding gravel fire road. Many of us riding our smooth-tired hybrid bikes, it was a relief that after several adult and kid crashes on the way down the worst injuries were only scraped knees.
So we were surprised when the biggest danger was not from the bikes. The winds were howling that day, and Lynn, Martha, and Fernando were the only ones in the campsite. The kids had just left the tent and their card games to bike some more laps when there was a deafening splintering crack high above. Lynn looked to see where it was coming from, didn’t find it, and looked back down— to see Martha sprinting away. Lynn started running, too, away from the noise. It was just in time.
Behind them followed a thundering crash of trunks and branches. The top 60 feet of a 200 foot redwood had snapped off in a gust and fallen right across the campsite, crushing the tent that moments before held the gaming kids and covering the fire pit Lynn and Martha had just been chatting around.
Note to self: don’t taunt the hazard trees.
