California’s big-tree hunters
In the age of Google Maps, you might be tempted to think the world has no places left to discover.
Tell that to California’s big-tree hunters.
Even in 2017, there are areas of forest along the teeming north coast and beyond that few humans have penetrated.
The region’s nutrient-rich soil and wet weather have given rise to the planet’s tallest living organisms — Sequoia sempervirens, or coast redwoods — which often grow 300 feet or higher.
The oldest ones are believed to date to the construction of the Parthenon.
The forests make a tantalizing playground for adventurers armed with rangefinders and dreams of the next big find.
“For big tree hunters, this is not a profession,” said Lea Sloan, a spokeswoman at American Forests, a group that tracks America’s tallest trees. “In some ways you could call it an obsession.”
Among the elite are naturalists like Mike Taylor and Chris Atkins, who in 2006 discovered the current world height champion — a coast redwood called Hyperion that rises an incredible 379 feet, equivalent to about 35 stories.
Located somewhere within the vast wilderness of Redwood National Park, its precise spot has been kept secret for fear of attracting damaging foot traffic.
Measured by volume, however, other trees have Hyperion beat.
One, the Del Norte Titan, was found near the Oregon border in 1998 by Taylor and another big-tree specialist, Stephen Sillett, who teaches forest ecology at Humboldt State University.
Part of a stand of massive coast redwoods, the Del Norte’s diameter measures about 24 feet, just less than the width of a tennis court.
Mario Vaden, an Oregon photographer, shared some images captured at the grove in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park that Taylor and Sillett have called, fittingly, the Grove of Titans.
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