Fort Bragg — – On a steep hillside along the spectacularly rugged Mendocino County coast, is an 11-acre grove of ancient redwood trees with twisted trunks and branches that shoot out wildly in all directions as if frozen in the middle of a conniption fit. The contorted trees, most of which are 500 years old, survived only because their bent wood could not be turned into lumber, and they are a biological gold mine to conservationists.