It's true you can drive right up to some of Northern California's giant redwood trees. But you can also walk up to them and enjoy the difference in scale between their majestic height and our rather insignificant elevation.
Plenty of hiking trails exist, and John Soares lists them in a new book: Hike the Parks: Redwood National & State Parks. John is a veteran hiker and writer about hiking; he returns to the studio to take us into the woods.