The Tallest Tree Photos
By Rocky Thompson on September 30th, 2009
The first time I saw California’s Redwoods was a day of thick fog. (Probably not uncommon on the coast.) Standing at the base of the trees, you’d get a feel for the height of the trees based on the enormous trunks, then turn your head skyward and lose the tops in the low clouds. It felt like I’d stumbled into Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and I was walking among a land of giants. I somehow managed to avoid getting eaten by a huge sloth. National Geographic committed a camera crew, a team of scientists, and some robot camera magic to shooting photos of the trees and studying them. Wend has the video. This image of the largest tree is a conglomerate of about 80 photos.
The other day I was telling my wife how your 1st trip into the redwood forest is something you’ll never forget. I kept expecting to see wookies from star wars to pop out of the underbrush when we were hiking in the redwood forest.
just to remind everybody that there used to be maybe 30 or 40, maybe more, redwoods 50′ to 75′ TALLER THAN THIS ONE! Estimates are that we are down to about 4% of the original trees. They grow fast, and even a 100 yr old tree is pretty darn big. Is a 1,000 yr old redwood tree a renewable resource?
Wookies can’t exactly pop out of nowhere. Ewoks can though. Just in case anyone was confused or cared.
Bruce Johnston wrote that maybe 30 or 40 existed once, taller by 50′ to 70′.
Note that the redwood in the photo is the 3rd largest by volume. Its height is 300′ tall. But there are about 100 redwoods between the heights of 300′ to 379′ tall. I keep the list on my website.
Surprisingly, none taller than the one in the photo are bigger than this one.
MDV ~ Oregon