"Once upon a time, there was a little tree. It stood in a great forest where all the trees looked alike, so no one ever noticed it.
“I am a tree… but who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going?” it wondered. Yet the little tree found no peace in those thoughts.

It was night, the very first night of year 0, when the tree carefully unfolded its very first leaf. And as it looked up, it saw a star so large and radiant that the whole sky seemed alive with light.
“Look, look at the star!” cried the tree to its neighbors.
“Hush, we see it, hush hush,” they whispered. “But what does it matter to us? We stand where we stand.”
“Yes,” sighed the little tree, “but my heart longs to follow the light.”

The years passed, and the tree grew. Birds perched on its branches, and again and again it told them the story of the star it had seen on that first night.
“Was it truly that big?” they asked.
“Bigger than all longing,” answered the tree, “and yet so far away that no one could ever reach it.”

One day a bird arrived, with red feathers on its breast, and it listened to the story.
“Who are you?” asked the tree.
“I am Robin,” said the bird. “I come from far away. I know your star. But the people—oh, they killed it.”
“Killed a star?” gasped the tree. “Can such a thing be done?”
“Yes,” nodded Robin. “One can forget the light, and when that happens, it is almost the same.”

Then the tree shed a tear, which fell upon Robin’s red breast and slid down onto the bark. And wherever it touched, the bark turned reddish, as if the tree had been given a glowing memory to carry within.
“Now you know the story, and you are no longer an ordinary tree,” said Robin.
“No,” whispered the tree. “Now I must grow, until I reach the star once more.”

And the tree grew, and grew, and grew. Year after year it stretched higher and higher, and the whole forest rose with it, until they became the red giants we now call the redwoods.

People say that if you walk through Redwood Forest and stand beneath the mighty trunks, you can hear them whisper in the wind:
“We remember, we long, we keep on growing.”

And in a quiet grove, there still lives the nameless red giant of the forest, reaching all the way toward heaven.

And if you climb all the way to the top—oh, it is high, higher than any ladder could ever reach!—you may see to the very edge of heaven itself, where the star still shines.

At Roaring Camp stands the little great red tree with no known name.
Listen closely—you may hear it whisper from its green crown,
or through a hollow in its red bark.
When you catch its name, write it here… and let the light shine! ✨"

Jan Bay Kønig

"Trip going the redwoods to the santa cruz boardwalk is nice! Hopefully they could improve their PA so we could hear the conductor explain. It is also quite expensive for the train amenities. Nonetheless it was a fun experience. My verdict: recommended to try for first but not for the second time around. See images and videos for fuether information."

Nico Samneil Salado

"What a wonderful place to enjoy a train ride. It is a scaled-down model of a train that hauls logs. The route is a challenging set of up and down hill maneuvers with steep grades and several switches back and forth between two sets of trains. Quite interesting!"

Donna Fong