Photograph: Forest, Gazos Creek - Redwoods and Big Leaf Maples

Forest, Gazos Creek

Posted on 14 July 2011

Forest, Gazos Creek

A dense mixed redwood and big leaf maple forest along Gazos Creek, California.

Today I used the excuse of driving my son over the hill to UC-Santa Cruz for his summer school class to get in a short trip up the coast north of Santa Cruz. We are in the midst of the “June gloom” period along the coast of northern California, and the fog doesn’t clear until later in the day, and never does clear completely in some areas. As I left Santa Cruz the fog bank was visible but well off-shore, but as I travelled north I eventually encountered it right around Año Nuevo State Reserve.

I had a vague plan to check out Gazos Creek Road, having heard from some other photographers that there are interesting redwood trees and other subjects in that area. Since I still had some time, I turned up the road and it quickly narrowed as it followed the creek and the bottom of the canyon into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Since this was more or less a scouting trip, I drove all the way to the end of the road without stopping much, but on the way back down I decided to stop and make some photographs of this grove of new-grown coast redwoods mixed with the curving trunks of big leaf maple trees.

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