Forests I Have Visited and Loved

According to the natural-wonder-filled Greenpeace calendar that hangs in my kitchen, today is World Forestry Day. I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up. Celebrated at the autumn equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, which leads me to infer that it might have started in Australia or New Zealand, it supposedly encourages the planting of trees (sort of like Arbor Day, I suppose) and encourages preservation of "green cover." It did cause me to think about woods and forests I have known and enjoyed. Here are five that have impressed me for the most different of reasons.

• Sterling Forest State Park, NY - This park's 18,000 fairly pristine acres would be lost in a corner of, say, southwestern Colorado's 2.5 million-acre San Juan National Forest, but being at the northern edge of the ultra-congested New York City metropolitan area, it is a rare green relief to all that concrete and all those skyscrapers.
  
• Tongass National Forest, AK - I know that the Tongass has been heavily logged, but on my three visits to Southeast Alaska, I've never actually seen any of the logged areas -- and I'm glad of it. At nearly 17 million acres, the Tongass is the largest unit in the national forest system. It covers the mainland and many of the islands that form the Inside Passage. I've been awestruck stately Sitka spruce secured to steep slopes that rise straight from the sea. The Tongass is what is commonly called a "recreational paradise" -- suitable for hiking, fishing, hunting, kayaking, wildlife viewing, camping and photography, but being prepared for foul weather is a necessity in this northern rainforest. Some 150 simple backcountry cabins (like that at Cascade Creek, right) are available for rent -- little pieces of paradise at a very moderate price.


• Laurentides Provincial Wildlife Reserve, QU - On a family vacation to Quebec, I remember driving from Quebec city to Chicoutimi on the Saguenay River. It is something like 140 miles, but in my dim childhood recollection, it was a very, very long trip. I've since learned that this reserve offer splendid fishing and hunting, but all I remember are trees. Lots of trees. It was the first time I had seen more than the little woods and mini-forests of southern New England, and the impression, though dim, remains with me.


• Muir Woods, CA - Much as Sterling Forest is a relief from New York, the magnificent Muir Woods National Monument fulfills the same role for San Francisco. West Coast redwood trees dominate this coastal forest, with a supporting cast of Douglas fir, big-leaf maple, tanbark oak and baylaurel. No cathedreal is more inspiring, and just to walk among these giants is to be humbled by nature's majesty and grandeur.


• Khao Sok National Park, Thailand - A short visit to this national park containing the world's oldest evergreen rainforests made me understand more about the Vietnam War than years of distressing newscasts. The Southeast Asian rainforest is so dense that it is virtually impossible to see someone a few feet away. And then there were the leeches! No wonder the US military was so eager to defoliate. Today, the jungle is incredibly lush and improbably green. We stayed at Art's Jungle Lodge, primitive bungalows perched high on stilts. The beds are hung with mosquito netting, water for bathing or flushing is dipped from a barrel in each bathroom, and citronella candles decorated each unscreened window. It was hot. It was sticky. My pillow was not much softer than a brick. When night fell the forest creatures all sang, trilled, chirped, cried and generally added to a rainforest cacophony. When I put my head on that hard pillow, I thought I'd be awake all night, but I slept like a baby in a cradle.