OMG

[Den Socling]

Is this for real?



 

[mad murdock]

Looks like it could be coastal redwoods, looks real to me.

[Weekend_Sawyer]

and the one guy is saying to the other

"Who brings Chinese handcuffs up a tree anyway!"

[Cedarman]

There is a pull out spread of a very large tall redwood in the last national Geographic.  The people in the tree are incredibaly small.
Impressive.

[Den Socling]

They can't expect the fire department to get them down!  :D

[terry f]

    Somebody has to be up another tree, getting the picture.

[Den Socling]

You're right, Terry. They are even higher. One time I read a book about people who climbed coastal redwoods. They would do things like climb to the top of a tree that has been topped in a storm and have lunch. They would live in those trees. I wish I could remember the name of that book.

[beenthere]

Several years ago, Stihl Inc had a great photo op of climbers hanging off rigging with large chain saws. I used to have that large poster but don't know where it is at the moment.  : :

[WmFritz]

I think I read the same book, Den. It was about a group that would seek the tallest redwoods, climb them and camp in the canopies in hammocks overnight, sometimes.
I think they kept the  "Giants" a secret amongst themselves. If I remember right, they were something like 350' or so tall.
I need to dig around and find the title.

[FeltzE]

Yep that could be real, we took a motorcycle drive out to the west coast last spring and visited the giant redwoods and sequoia's very impressive. some running over 20 feet in diameter and topping over 300 feet tall.

The tallest was under 400 feet, I suspect it's because the tree can't push water that high up.

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Yep, that's the job for me. My knees start to shake when I am on a six foot tall step ladder. You could not pay me enough to climb a tree like that.

[Bill Gaiche]

I believe it. There was this article in todays Tulsa World paper about some big trees. bg

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=13&articleid=20121203_13_A14_CUTLIN21174

[learner]

I HOPE they are just climbing for the climb.  Because the idea of cutting one of those ancients just makes me sick.  That would be like destroying the Great Salt Plains, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Taj Mahal, or the Great Wall of china.  Trees that size are a part of the History of our World.
They have seen things we can only Dream about.  Has anyone ever found the Oldest living tree?  That has to be a sight to see!  I've seen thousand year old rocks but to witness the splender of a 300 year old living thing is a wonder!

[treefarmer87]

I THOUGHT THE BIG GRADE OAKS I CUT WERE BIG i agree with learner, they shouldnt be cut.

[beenthere]

I've seen thousand year old rocks but to witness the splender of a 300 year old living thing is a wonder

300 year old is not 'old' for a tree. Cut some Alaska yellow cedar that counted out more than 900 rings. They'd been dead for a hundered years and were still solid wood.

[1270d]

I believe that the oldest tree, methuselah is 4844 or 45 yrs old.  Its location is not diclosed

[learner]

Just found this link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)

[beenthere]

Almost 5000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)

[SPIKER]

If you have never seen some of these things UP CLOSE you have no idea how big the really are.   Spent some time in Sequoia Nat Forest & redwood nat forest in Northern CA back in 92.   REALLY impressive to stand next to a tree and not be able to see around it without taking a hike!   or see the TOP of a Redwood without walking back a hundred yards.  8)

[thecfarm]

That picture is beautiful.

[Den Socling]

I have to go there and see these trees! We are doing a job in Washington. I will make the trip down. I am amazed by big trees in PA. Those Redwoods make them look like weeds.

[Slab Slicer]

Check some of the climbing links here. These folks really love there recreational climbing.

http://www.sherrilltree.com/Rec-Galleries/Photos_2

[Slab Slicer]

Here's a few more.

http://www.sherrilltree.com/Rec-Galleries/Rec-Photographs-by-Louie-Psihoyos

[thenorthman]

I have to go there and see these trees! We are doing a job in Washington. I will make the trip down. I am amazed by big trees in PA. Those Redwoods make them look like weeds.

If'n yer allready in Warshington then its a hop and a skip to the Hoh Rain Forest, just a few miles south of forks, trees are not as big  but still very impressive, also some very large ceder just out side Darrington on the beaver lake trail. 

I keep asking the wifey if we can take a self loader and the 090 and go camping in the hoh rain forest, she always says no but it would be funny to see the tree huggers panic just a little bit...

They don't make a 6 foot bar for nothin ya know

[redprospector]

I HOPE they are just climbing for the climb.  Because the idea of cutting one of those ancients just makes me sick.  That would be like destroying the Great Salt Plains, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Taj Mahal, or the Great Wall of china.  Trees that size are a part of the History of our World.
They have seen things we can only Dream about.  Has anyone ever found the Oldest living tree?  That has to be a sight to see!  I've seen thousand year old rocks but to witness the splender of a 300 year old living thing is a wonder!

I don't think you have to worry about seeing one of those trees cut. The environmentalist have such a strangle hold on this country that we can't cut anything over 24" DBH in the Lincoln National Forest.

It's not that I don't agree with you that those giants shouldn't be cut. I just get a little huffy when people get all touchy/feely about a tree. Once we let it get started, it only had one way to go.

Andy

[clww]

There's a great book that you can get with many pictures and stories of the removal of some giant trees. The book is "High Climbers and Timber Fallers" by Gerald Beranek. It is in the Bailey's catalog right now on sale for $39.99.

[Ironwood]

Den,

YES YES YES, go see them and CAMP among them! I have the books and several posters as the others do. Stihl had a promo poster with several "tiers" of guys staged with all the models of their BIG saws on the spring boards.  We stayed in the Humbolt NF and it was so cool. my oldest was 2 1/2 (2004). Wifey had a conference in San Fran and we road tripped a week and a half Central Valley,  Redding, Redwood Creek, Sciotia Lumber Museum (must see,  woops update: looks like it closed), Humbolt, Cresent City, Kalamath Falls, Shasta, St. Helens, Army Buddy near Rainier and then Pike Street Market and SeaTac Airport home. Take a fly rod if your into that.  ;) Totally awesome. Such wonderful presence when you among the Coastals........ Nice camping too. I really liked Grants Pass (I could move there). Really go to Sciotia and see the Palco Lumber Museum. There is an incredible story of the "Flood of 64'  " I saw a sign in Humbolt that said "Water  level 64'" and I thought it was a joke (like our "Air mail signs") but sure enough there were pics in the museum, water washed out every bridge in 5 counties. The sign I saw pointed up to another sign 30-40' UP . Holy Arks! That torrent washed ALOT of bigguns out onto the flood plain toward Eureka (home to Carson's famous redwood house)


http://www.eurekaheritage.org/the_carson_mansion.htm

and even today the the former "Redwood burl guys" that used to "cleanup" after active logging in the forest (no longer an option) go out onto the shoals of the Eel River and use excavators to dig up the washout. Here is a VERY dark root crown burl stained from being buried in the shoal. I bought two 12'ers while out there then made some commissioned stuff from them when they got to Pa.

Ironwood (now saving even the smallest scraps of Redwood I find, even stuff from the tacky old lawn furniture I find "curbside" :)
I AM A FAN!!!


 

 

  

       

[terry f]

    Redprospector, walk around some of those trees, and you can't help but get a little touchy/feely. Not being a religious person, its hard not to get a little spiritual when you are around them. Hard to comprehend the time these trees have been liveing.

[Ron Wenrich]

Den

Have you made it over to see the box huckleberry down in Perry county?  13,000 years old and it covers acres.  Its not as impressive as the redwoods, because its only 6" high.

Detweiler Run Natural area has a virgin hemlock forest.  They took us to that during ecology classes back in 1970.  Impressive trees, as well.  Its back around Bear Meadows in the Rothrock park.

[ohsoloco]

Ron, do you recall where those hemlocks are?  That's just a few miles from my place.  I've been to Alan Seeger Natural Area around Bear Meadows.  Some big hemlocks there, but the biggest ones came down in the past ten years or so. 

The Sequoias on the west coast was a runner up for out honeymoon, I still want to make it out there.

[Cypressstump]

That is one fine tree for sure. I did see the tv feature of where the guys were trying to locate the tallest redwood, climb one, then see another in the distance that looked taller, so off they'd go. Amazing.
Down here the oldest known virgin cyress tree was taken in the 1930's, it's ring count was 1386 years old, and it was said to be solid at the base, said to be the largest completely solid cyprees known.  A mere toothpick compared to those giant redwoods.

[Den Socling]

Ron,

I lived in State College from '72 to '82 so I've been in the Bear Meadows area. I didn't know about Box Huckleberry so I Googled. Very interesting shrub! I read that one plant can cover 8 acres.

[WmFritz]

The title of the book I read was ''The Wild Trees.'' It was mainly about a botanist  from PA named Dr. Stephen Sillett who, along with a few other climbers, discovered some of the worlds tallest trees. The tallest, they named Hyperion, measured 379.1 ft.

[Cypressstump]

humm,,, how do ya string a climbing rope up to the first limb on a tree whose lower limb may be well over a 100 foot above head ?

[ohsoloco]

They make a slingshot for that.  I have a short DVD about the Big Shot slingshot that Sherrill made, and it includes a clip about climbing some of the big Sitka Spruce.  Cool little video 

[DRB]

We always think of the Redwoods when big trees are talked about but the tree in WA were very impressive.  Here is an account of a 465 foot tall Doug fir.  Thats a lot taller then the redwoods.

"From one of those valleys came the most startling account: Newspaper reports of a 465-foot fir, logged in 1897 at Loop's Ranch, an early homestead in the lower North Fork Nooksack River valley, between Mount Baker and present-day Bellingham.

The Nooksack Giant, as we'll call it here, was unceremoniously felled with crosscut saws, then cut into massive sections and yarded a short distance across the valley floor to rail cars, which hauled the logs west to New Whatcom, now Bellingham.

There, one cross-section was displayed on the corner of Railroad Avenue and Holly Street, bearing a sign noting the tale of the tape: 465 feet in height, with 220 feet of clear stalk between the ground and the first branch.

The tree was nearly 11 feet in diameter, 34 feet in circumference, and provided more than 96,000 board feet of lumber — enough to construct eight large, two-story houses. A count of its rings indicated an age of at least 480 years — young, by giant tree standards, and obviously still growing.

If those measurements are accurate, the Nooksack Giant likely was one of the tallest trees, of any kind, ever found. It would have been 50 feet taller than a contemporaneous well-documented giant fir, logged in the Lynn Valley, north of Vancouver, B.C., in 1902."

The whole story can be found here.

http://seattletimes.com/html/restlessnative/2016112972_restless05m.html

[Ianab]

Also worth looking at Eucalyptus regnans in Australia.

Although the tallest surviving ones are only around 300ft, there are reliable historical measurements of 370ft, and some claims of over 400ft.

It's the the tallest flowering plant, all the other big trees are Softwoods.

Ian

[Slab Slicer]

They make a slingshot for that.  I have a short DVD about the Big Shot slingshot that Sherrill made, and it includes a clip about climbing some of the big Sitka Spruce.  Cool little video 

We use the "Big Shot" for rigging climbing lines into trees we are either removing, or trimming. I don't do the climbing, just the rigging. Sherrill is the best place for arborist gear that I've found. A 100 foot shot with one of them would be easy. It's a sling shot on steroids.  :D

[ashes]

Now you guys are talking about my neck of the woods.

The picture Den linked is of Dr. Stephen Sillett's wife, and another ecologist. I assume that it was taken by Sillett from an adjacent tree. He is a professor at Humboldt State University teaching a class called silvics (tree physiology). I will be in that class next semester. In the labs for that class we will be able to climb a couple of times on redwoods that are on campus along with some blue gums.

Sillett works on research with another guy Dr. Robert Van Pelt, who also teaches at HSU. Van Pelt and Sillett go down to Australia to do research on blue gum trees, and the two of them are obsessed by the tallest trees in the world. I have seen a crossbow that had a fishing pole reel modified onto it for shooting a line into the canopy.

All very cool stuff. And yes that picture is as real as it gets. Those trees are huge, and don't fret, old growth redwood logging is a thing of the past.

[horselogger50]

That picture is incredible

[ashes]

Just wanted to say that today in Dr. Steven Sillets class at Humboldt State University we climbed into three redwood trees.

It was so cool!!!

Today was climbing training so we only climbed up a little over 100ft, but the views were worth the time spent. Later we will be climbing these same trees and measuring them (everything)! Can't wait.

[justallan1]

There was one redwood that was split at the bottom and you were allowed to drive your car through years ago and another that was hollow and had a gift shop inside, and it was still living I believe.
I cleaned up the mess they made just north of there in Brookings, Oregon when they filmed Return of the Jedi, they should have all been jailed for the way they left the forest.
Allan