The Trees of Mystery are a tourist trap in Klamath, California. Although the redwoods are very impressive, other trees just like them can be seen for free all over the northern coast of California.
That being said, visitors to the Trees of Mystery will be greeted by an enormous statue of Paul Bunyan. The 49-foot statue will talk to people below and answer questions. A man is inside with a microphone, so he can answer questions about what visitors look like. A hilarious thing to do is to ask Paul questions about the tales of Paul Bunyan. You would think that there would be at least a list of important Bunyan-related things that the voice could reference in case troublemakers like me showed up, but that is not the case.
Once you pay to enter the park, you will see many trees that are misshapen and are given funny names. Examples are :
- The Lightning Tree- A tree that has a jagged shape, like a cartoon lightning bolt.
- The Upside-Down Tree- This tree is admittedly impressive. A thin redwood has grown sideways, and then has two 90-degree bends in the trunk before growing upwards again.
- The Candelabra Tree- A small tree is growing sideways, and seven smaller trees are growing from the trunk.
The trail turns around at the Brotherhood Tree. This tree is HUGE!! At 60 ft. in diameter and 297 ft. tall, this is easily the biggest tree I have ever seen. The name is supposed to represent the hope for the brotherhood of mankind.
On the return to the parking lot (which forces you to walk through the gift shop), there is the "Trail of Tall Tales." This consists of a bunch of redwood slabs carved with chainsaws depicting the adventures of Paul Bunyan. Now, I may be wrong, but it seems to me that cutting down trees and using them to tell a story about a logger who supposedly chopped down every tree in the Dakotas is NOT the correct way to celebrate nature.
The last thing on the tour is actually pretty neat. A tree trunk has its rings labeled with events that happened in the year the ring was made. For example, there is a label at the Civil War, one at the discovering of America, and one at the Crusades. It is very impressive how that tree has lived for a great deal of the millenium.
As neat as it is, I must stress again that it is not necessary to pay money to see these trees.