Two Shades of Green

A drive along the Redwood Highway offers travelers a chance to witness the divergent forces that feed upon Northern California’s evergreens. A tour bus, top left, hauls in those probably more familiar with skyscrapers made of concrete, while a truck, top right, hauls away lumber, an industry’s lifeblood. An eerie calmness filters through the giant evergreens, left, along the highway, which stretches 359 miles from San Francisco north to Crescent City. Every grove, every tree along the way seems to have a name or have been transformed into some kind of tourist oddity--such as the Founders Tree in the Avenue of the Giants, below. Trees, bottom, are stacked high at the Eel River Sawmill.