This piece for the San Francisco Chronicle won a Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation and was honored by the North American Travel Journalists Association as one of the best newspaper travel stories of 2018:

An excerpt:

Redwood trees are giant collective spirits — ecosystems, in the scientific parlance. Why single out one, when the collective has such profound presence and significance? It’s how those trees interact with one another and with their understory that enables them to reach such magnificent heights. That’s the source of their majesty. Not a cool name or a world record.

I would encourage anyone to make the Tall Trees hike, and discourage anyone from attempting to reach Hyperion. Some locations, some trees, should remain secret, untrammeled, and probably unnamed. Let them flourish in anonymous silence. Let us look out from afar and be happy that they’re there, and proud that 50 years ago we established a national park to protect them.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE