Redwood Regional Park
Coordinates: 37°48′48.8″N 122°09′57.3″W / 37.813556°N 122.165917°W
Redwood Regional Park is a park of the East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD) in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is located in the hills east of Oakland. The park contains the largest remaining natural stand of coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) found in the East Bay. The park is part of a historical belt of coast redwood extending south to Leona Canyon Regional Open Space Preserve and east to Moraga.
Redwood forests are more commonly found closer to the coast where the air is cool and humid year-round. In the Bay Area, such forests are found in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Marin Hills. The unique geographical circumstances of the redwood forest in Redwood Regional Park create coastal conditions. Winds funneled through the Golden Gate flow directly across the Bay and are channeled into the linear valley in which the Montclair District of Oakland is situated. This valley is also well-watered all year round and is protected from extremes of temperature and high winds.
Up to the middle of the 19th century, the bulk of the redwood forest lay in the Redwood Creek valley, with extensions to the surrounding ridges. In 1826 British navy captain Frederick William Beechey used the "Navigation Trees", two particularly tall redwood trees along the ridges, to help them navigate in San Francisco Bay. However, logging from 1845 to 1860 wiped out the original trees, leaving only their stumps. A second logging occurred after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In this instance the second growth redwoods (approximately 50 years old) as well as the stumps from the first generation trees were logged, the site of which is registered as California Historical Landmark #962. The redwoods contained in today's regional park are third-growth trees, many of which are over 100 years old. Only one old-growth redwood remains in the area, a ninety-three feet tall tree growing miraculously out of a rock on a cliff face near Merritt College and probably too difficult to reach for loggers to bother with.
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