Among the GIANTS Fascinating redwood forests worth the short trip south.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

CRESCENT CITY, Calif. - Maybe this is what Merriam-Webster had in mind when it granted official-English-word status to "ginormous" in its 2007 college dictionary edition. The towering coastal redwoods of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park are not only gigantic and enormous, they are a thesaurus of dinosauric description. They are behemothic and Bunyanesque, massively massy and mightily monstrous.

Herculean. Whopping. "Tree"-mendously titanic, for sure.

The park is home to one of the largest populations of Sequoia sempervirens, the scientific name for coastal redwoods, the world's tallest living things.

Sure, these redwoods are in California, but it's close enough to the border that even the most staunch Oregonians can claim them as their own - even if only for a weekend or a long afternoon.

Jedediah Smith, nine miles east of Crescent City, is the northernmost of 30 Redwood National and State Parks in Northern California. And its 10,000 acres, where scenes for the 1983 Star Wars film "The Return of the Jedi" were shot, are arguably the most spectacular of the Redwood National and State Parks.

California's coastal redwoods stretch from Monterey County, south of San Francisco, to the Oregon border, and actually across it. But the redwoods you'll find in Southwestern Oregon do not grow like they do in the California park, just a few miles inland from the sea. Some reach more than 300 feet, and the tallest yet found last summer near Eureka is 379 feet. The bases of the trees can reach 22 feet in diameter.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park was established in 1929, just a few years after two other old-growth Redwood State Parks, Prairie Creek and Del Norte Coast, were created as part of a national campaign to preserve the coastal redwoods after decades of logging. Jedediah Smith was a fearless trapper thought to be the first white man to explore the interior of Northern California in the 1820s.

The park has about 20 miles of hiking and nature trails, is bisected by the magnificent Smith River and the accompanying canyon of the same name, and is surrounded by a lush undergrowth of rhododendrons, azaleas and banks of ferns that grow on huge fallen trees.

If there is one spot that's a must-see in the vast park, it's the Stout Memorial Grove along the southern banks of the South Fork of the Smith River. The easiest way to find it coming across the Oregon border on U.S. Highway 199, also known as the Redwood Highway, is to take South Fork Road just before the tiny town of Hiouchi, then a right on Douglas Park Road, and follow the signs. If spending the night in Crescent City, however, take Elk Valley Road until it becomes Howland Hill Road, an unpaved stretch of beauty where the winding road is just wide enough to drive your car.

The immensity of the park's redwoods is immediately striking. You are not in Kansas, anymore, nor Oregon nor any of the other contiguous 48 states for that matter. It's difficult to believe that these towering wonders grow from the same size seeds as that of tomatoes and that they can end up weighing 500 tons.

Once reaching the small parking lot near the trail that leads to Stout Memorial Grove, you'll find license plates, if not from Kansas, then from Oregon, California, Maryland, North Carolina, Missouri, Illinois and Washington. And you'll find mosquitoes nipping at bare legs, so bring some repellent along if you venture here in the summertime.

A day after a recent summer rain shower, the ridiculously large tree trunks with the foot-thick bark and forest floor are moist, and ground squirrels scurry about. A paved trail becomes a gravel one, crunching under shoes.

"I can't believe there's one tree that's 4,000 years old!" says 4-year-old Nikki Burnett of New York City, walking with her parents, Marcus and Andi Burnett. "Can you believe that? That's got to be a world record!"

Actually, the redwoods are known to live for 2,000 years, and some have been estimated at three millennia, but their average lifespan is more like 500 to 700 years, according to the National Park Service. Every now and then hikers encounter a tree with burn marks, scorched by a lightning strike or one of the many fires that have roared through the forest over the decades. Or you come across a toppled giant.

One dead trunk is so long it just disappears into the cool, damp shaded forest. People have carved their names and initials into it ... "Bennett" ... "Larsen" ... "S+A" ... "Glenn" ... The root systems of toppled trees are huge, dark, black, intricate and otherworldly masses of growth. They penetrate the ground only 10 to 13 feet deep, but expand up to 80 feet from the trunk.

There are green patches of wood sorrel in the groves and the sounds of chirping birds fill the air as groups of people make their way along the trail that loops from the parking lot, down toward the Smith River, and back again.

Sightseers always appear to be looking up, as if peering at urban skyscrapers - without the fear of looking like tourists or getting mugged.

Two men stand in front of a trunk with their arms outstretched, posing for a photograph. Another man with a touring cap covering his white hair stands not far away, dwarfed at the base of a redwood. He takes his hat in his hands, bows his head and seems to be praying. Then he lies down in a grove between huge trunks, staring up at the cathedral of giants surrounding him, shafts of sunlight streaming through the branches.

"I just find myself wanting to sleep with these trees sometimes," says the man, Bill Faricy of Portland.

Wildlife in the park consists of everything from black bears to cougars to skunks, and although those are rare sightings for tourists, it's not uncommon to see a bald eagle cruising by or a marbled murrelet. And the Smith River is known for its king salmon and steelhead trout.

The Smith River Canyon is another spectacular sight, a rocky canyon that can be seen from the bridges that cross it along South Fork Road. If swimming is your thing, the Smith River is a wonderful place to take a cool dip on a hot summer day. There's a campground and picnic area on the northern bank of the river, just across from the Hiouchi Information Center on U.S. Highway 199.

JEDEDIAH SMITH REDWOODS STATE PARK

What: Northernmost of California's 30 Redwood State Parks

Where: Nine miles east of Crescent City, Calif., on U.S. Highway 199

Contact: [phone]; open sunrise to sunset year-round

WHERE'S THAT TREE YOU CAN DRIVE THROUGH?

(None are in Jedediah Smith park)

The Wawona Tree: The most famous drive-through redwood, a giant sequoia estimated to have lived for 2,100 years, reigned in the Mariposa Grove of Yosemite National Park from 1881 to 1969. It succumbed to a two-ton load of snow on its crown that winter.

Klamath Tour-Thru Tree: This 725-year-old wonder has a 9-foot-6 by 7-foot-4 tunnel and is 19 miles south of Crescent City off U.S. Highway 101.

The Shrine Tree: Along Avenue of the Giants, 135 miles south of Crescent City, this drive-through tree opened in the 1920s. Its tunnel was created naturally by fire centuries ago, but was widened by an entrepreneur.

Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree: Three men labored several weeks to chisel out a tunnel in the mid-1930s. The tree is more than 2,000 years old, 315 feet tall and 21 feet in diameter at its base; 175 miles south of Crescent City near U.S. Highway 101 intersection at Leggett.