44 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM OUTDOORS big basin reawakened words by LOTUS ABRAMS {due west} Arriving at Big Basin Redwoods State Park recently with my family in tow—our first visit to the park since the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire engulfed the Santa Cruz Mountains in flames—I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what to expect. In just 24 hours, the wildfire blazed through 97% of the oldest state park in California, destroying 85 miles of trails and 100 structures, including the iconic 1930s-era campfire center and the 1911 Old Lodge, plus a brand-new nature museum that was set to open in 2021. We’re here to meet our guide for the day, Garret Hammack, a planner with California State Parks’ Santa Cruz District. As we begin our walk, I can’t help but reminisce about how different the ing their way back to the park, and new and unusual species of fungi are appearing. Most remarkably, bushy, green new growth is sprouting from the charred redwoods. “The vast majority of the old growth redwood trees survived because they can sprout directly from the trunk or any of the branches, even when they’re completely burned,” Garret tells us. Scientists have long known that redwoods are well-adapted to fire, but the mechanism of their survival wasn’t fully understood. Big Basin offered researchers from Northern Arizona University the chance to study their seemingly miraculous recovery. “What they found is that, over their lifetime, these trees store a portion of the carbon that they take from the atmosphere through photosynthesis as a kind of insurance policy, so when something like this happens, they can tap into those reserves to form new needles,” says Ben Blom, director of stewardship and restoration park looked when my husband and I took our daughters here before the fire, on one of their first camping trips. Today the majestic redwoods, some of which are over 2,000 years old, are missing their glorious crowns, their bark blackened by the fire. The Douglas firs did not survive the flames, and neither did the campsites. But despite the destruction, I start to notice that something remarkable is happening at Big Basin: The forest ecosystem is once again full of life. SIGNS OF RENEWAL The grasses and ferns are flourishing on the sunlit forest floor and in the meadows. My daughter spots a banana slug. Garret shares that bobcats, foxes, deer and birds are findPHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: MAX WHITTAKER - SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE
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