New growth California redwoods in Purisima Creek provide great shade on a hot summer day.

This ethereal image is taken in the Purisma Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, in the Bay Area of California. It was a bright sunny day, but the dense Redwood forest provide a respite from the heat. Only the dappled sunlight hints of the heat outside. It seems to me that most photographs of California’s coastal redwoods seem very wet, as if from a rain forest. But these forests, at least those on the San Francisco peninsula, are definitely not rain forests. The fog which rolls in from the Pacific Ocean contains enough moisture to sustain these giants through the dry summers. But that same fog doesn’t keep the forest wet and lush for much longer than it is physically there. As such, these forests really dry up on hot fogless summer days. The scene has an interesting feel to it, one that is different from the stereotypical image of a redwood forest.

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