Discover the magnificent trees of West America with this 4k walk through the beautiful Tervuren Arboretum.
After introducing you to the Tervuren Arboretum with a walk through the countries bordering the Mediterranean, it’s now time to hop on our virtual and therefore eco-friendly plane and zoom over to the western states of the USA. This is really a super walk. Some of these trees are absolutely giant and simply magnificent. Below is the map of this 4 km walk. You can download it as a PDF and you can get the GPX track for your device from my RouteYou page. Or you can simply follow the blue signposts. It’s well and clearly signed.
The walk starts from a different starting point from the Mediterranean Walk, namely the car park at the end of Jezus Eiklaan, Tervuren. A word of warning: although capable of holding around (I would guess) 40 cars, this car park gets very busy on a sunny weekend. I was there at 9:20 on an October Saturday and it was already filling up. The reason is that this is the main car park for the Arboretum, and especially for the Royal Walk which is popular with walkers, joggers, cyclists and dogs (and their owners). But I don’t think you are ever going to be battling the crowds on this West America walk. As I mentioned with the Mediterranean Walk, once you leave the Royal Walk and step into the forest, you will hardly see a soul. (Unless Discovering Belgium readers visit in en masse on the same day!).
At the car park there’s also a place where you can lock up your bike. By public transport, you need to get off De Lijn bus 317 at the Tervuren-Jezus Eiklaan bus stop. “Ah! That’s convenient!” you say. “A bus stop in the same street as the starting point.” Yes, you’re right, but Jezus Eiklaan is a long laan! You’ll need to walk 1.8 km from the bus stop to the car park. It’s a pleasant enough walk. But if you add this distance to the actual trail (both ways) then you will be walking 7.6 km. After that you may want to walk a bit further into the center of Tervuren and find a nice place for lunch to restore your energy.
Just look and admire
So what trees can we see on our visit to the American Far West? The walk descends from north to south along the Pacific Coast, from Alaska, through British Columbia, Washington and Oregon all the way to California before heading inland a little to the Rockies. This is the land of the rain forests, and the conifers that constitute them. So you’ll come across Douglas fir, Hemlock, Western red cedar, Giant sequoia, California redwood, Lodgepole pine, Colorado fir, and others.
However, as I found out and mentioned with the Mediterranean Walk, you don’t really know what you are looking at as most of the trees are not labelled. I came across about six trees that were labelled with their Latin names. But I refuse to spend my time on my phone looking up what a Pseudotsuga menziesii orThuja plicata is. (Can you imagine typing Pseudotsuga menziesii into Google on your phone?). I’d rather just look at the trees and admire them anonymously! (P.S. They are Douglas fir and Western red cedar: I’ve just looked them up).
Anyway, enough of my words. Here are a few of my pictures that I hope in a small way convey the beauty and atmosphere of this splendid place.
I hope you enjoy this second visit to the Tervuren Arboretum. Let me know how you get on below or via the contact form, which you can also use to send me questions.
Denzil, your photos are simply stunning especially with the sunlight shining through the trees. Having a few people in the images really gives a perspective on how enormous the trees are.
Thanks Carol, yes I was lucky as the sun came through the mist just as I arrived.
Great timing. It looks so beautiful.
There’s a fairytale quality to them with that magical light, Denzil. Wonderful!
Thanks Jo, I was indeed lucky with the light that morning. A true window of opportunity as before and afterwards it was grey.
I love this post and was wondering (until I read the post) where the name came from. Your pictures of light filtering through trees are scenes of some of my favorite natural cathedrals, where in some places cardinals roam freely.
I’m lucky to see these forests right here at home (Vancouver Island ). It’s good to see these trees growing in other places too. Beautiful photos!
Thanks Audrey, although I suspect they are not half as high and wide as yours. These are “only” around 100 years old or so.
There are some trees on our coast that are more than 1000 years old. But they are not all protected and some are still being cut down, as in Fairy Creek. People are making great efforts to save them, but it’s a struggle.
That’s a terrible thing to do if there’s no need to cut them down.
It’s an industry here but doesn’t have much of a future. Once those old forests are gone, they’re gone forever.
Thank you for this one Denzil, I did the walk yesterday with a friend (another photographer).
We noticed a lot of traces from wild pigs.
Even during the walk you avoid mostly the crowd that walks on the bigger paths.
As you mentioned you need to be on time, when we arrived at 8:30 AM, no problem.
There were only two cars before us.
When we were leaving at noon, the parking was completely filled.
We’ll visit again soon, as the colors are changing.
Looking forward to seeing your photos Jacques!