I Walked These Redwoods a Dozen Times Before I Found the Grove of Titans

It’s the closest thing I’ve found to a window into the deep past, a stand of primeval giants older than almost anything alive. Here’s what they are, how they were nearly lost, & how to visit yourself.

I’d walked these redwoods a dozen times before I ever set foot in the Grove. I thought I knew this forest. I’d driven the dirt road that threads through it, stood under trees that made me feel like a child, told myself I understood what a redwood was. Then one day I walked into the Grove of Titans, and the forest I thought I knew turned out to have been keeping a secret the whole time.

I don’t reach for the word lightly, but it’s the only one that fits. Primeval. These aren’t big trees the way a city park has big trees. They’re something older and stranger, ancient beyond easy comprehension, and walking among them feels less like hiking and more like time travel. It’s unlike any grove I’ve ever stood in. A window into the way the world looked thousands of years before any of us showed up.