This week Ann-Christine challenged us with words: Comfortable, Growing, Tangled, Crowded and Exuberant. Our assignment was to choose one or more of these words and display our photo interpretation.

I saw growing and crowded and instantly my mind went to Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Boulder Creek, one of our beautiful parks consumed by the CZU Complex lightening fire this month. I visited in February, 2016. It was my first time shooting in a dark forest and although my current forest efforts are better, I wanted to show you Big Basin.

As you can see, these trees are no strangers to fires. Redwoods can be almost hollowed out and still survive. After the fire is put out, the top continues to grow. My mind went to Big Basin because it is crowded with trees and constantly growing. The ground brush is usually well maintained in parks so they don’t provide super fuel for fires. But dry lightening strikes and thunder brought the forest to its knees. Here is how it looked in 2016 on overcast day, with some re-editing.

While the redwoods will survive, structures within the park didn’t. I’m sure during these pandemic days, rebuilding will be slow and it will be some time before we can walk through this beautiful forest again.

9 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Challenge #112: Word challenge”

  2. Nature’s wonders – I am always amazed at their survival potential despite every disaster. Hopefully they will rebuild and keep growing! Thank you for a perfect post for the challenge.

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  4. Our visit to the giant redwoods is one of my favorite all-time memories Anne. They are quite simply, magical. Thanks so much for the beautiful reminder. I did read that the fires had for the most part spared them thank goodness!

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