It was supposed to be a quick, easy stroll.

Friends were expecting us that night in San Francisco, and it was already 4 PM. We were 325 miles up the coast, just below Oregon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. I'd never seen ancient redwoods up close, so we carved out enough time for a photo op in front of the 304-foot tall, 1,500-year-old namesake of the Big Tree Wayside, just off the main scenic parkway. The trunk was massively thick (68 feet around), like solid rock, yet up near the canopy-filtered sunlight, it seemed buoyant. (An excellent mental image for standing yoga poses, I'd later think.)

We'd come this far with nothing but a free map, marked up with pink highlighter by a park ranger at the visitors' center. We took our snapshots and could have hit the road immediately, but a sign alerted us to an easy half-mile loop past a gorgeous stand of trees. Sure, our shadows were lengthening and our friends were waiting, but the trailhead was right there, so we considered a quick hike. Had we been at the vast Louvre and it was closing in 20 minutes, I'd still have bought a ticket and rushed to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Surely these natural beauties were worth the same effort.

I didn't sweat the fact that I was wearing sandals; not rugged Tevas with molded ergonomic soles, but old flip-flops scraped thin by city sidewalks, purchased from a 99-cent store on 14th Street. The trail looked flat and well groomed. What could go wrong?

My odd footwear had its perks. I walked more slowly, feeling each earthy lump and marveling at the growth and decay around me. Cool breezes tickled my high arches as I stood in the shadow of one downed colossus; its gnarly roots suggested a giant squid with its legs splayed out as randomly as Jackson Pollock's paint splashes. I stuck my face right in and smelled the fragrant dirt-covered timber, becoming lost in an arboreal wonderland.

Literally.

Entranced by sights and scents, I lost the trail. The sun went lower still. Plastic rubbed and reddened the soft flesh between my toes. This native New Englander's first Big Encounter with Western Nature, in all its super-sized glory, seemed destined to end in disaster. An hour and several tense words later, my friend and I spilled out onto the same highway we took in—much further up the road. Our glorious hike's final aria was sung upon hard blacktop, punctuated by leaps into the gutter when cars approached. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge at nearly midnight.

Beforehand, all I knew about redwoods was that some people like to drive through them. Hiking boots, had I owned them, wouldn't have told me that only 5% of old-growth redwood forests remain or that Sequoia sempervirens' root systems can be as shallow as 10 feet. (A Save the Redwoods League brochure did that.) And while my beloved flip-flops will never see another trail, I must admit—they showed me far more than I ever dreamed.