Big Trees

Today I'm posting some pictures of some truly massive trees. I apologize in advance as I don't have a ton that show true scale, but I'll try to put it into perspective when I can.

These trees are considered to be the biggest in the world. Not the tallest, the biggest. Many are more massive at chest height than the General Sherman tree and quite tall, easily breaking 300 feet and often above 320 or 330. While normal redwood trees are majestic, towering and humbling to stand near, a titan feel unreal when you're near it because the size is simply spectacular. Sometimes more than 26 feet in diameter (that's wider than your house is tall probably).

These titans have ecosystems hundreds of feet in the air where soil will collect in the branches allowing ferns, animals and even other trees to grow with their roots literally 200 or 300 feet in the air. Some of these secondary trees (not all redwoods) can grow to over 100 feet tall themselves. As I was editing these pictures I scoured the web for shots to compare the bases too but was unable to name all of the trees I took pictures of (and had an extra one I hardly shot as I didn't really realize it was there). I'll do my best to provide those names where I know them.

To start out, here's a picture of myself (with a dumb face) and my father in front of Fused Titan.


We were told by some other hikers originally that this was Lost Monarch (the largest of the Coastal Redwoods -- the largest trees in the world) but upon review I'm fairly certain this is actually called the Fused Titan. It's comprised of two (at least) coastal redwoods that grew together thousands of years ago and now form one tree. It is considered one tree for the purposes of size comparison but I was unable to find any data on it.

From Grove of the Titans

While the Fused Titan is simply amazing in its size, looking across the grove and the river that runs through it I took a picture of a tree that I didn't realize was El Viejo Del Norte until I started comparing the pictures I had of those to other known pictures of the bases.

From Grove of the Titans

What makes El Viejo Del Norte (The Old North -- often referred to as the Old Man of the Grove of Titans) so unique is the huge downward reaching burl that you can see to the left of the trunk. It's also the 5th largest coastal redwood in the world. As I go through and look at the pictures I have in even more detail I believe that we actually were right next to a few other titans and didn't get pictures or even notice. The underbrush is so dense in there and this time of year the creek that flows through the grove was quite full that I'm somewhat amazed we were able to make out what we did.

I've included this picture below as a comparison on what I believe is El Viejo Del Norte on the left an another titan that I'm thinking might be Del Norte (Simply "North"). Which the shot isn't great you can see both the size of these trees compared to those around them and the difficulty of hiking around in here - tons of underbrush.

From Grove of the Titans

Unfortunately with so little published about this area, it is hard to identify the trees themselves. Many people seek to protect the grove by keeping its location secret, but there were trails worn in the underbrush winding this way and that. I believe that it is time to put in some fences and some walkways simply to protect the trees as there will only be more and more people tramping around through the redwood sorrel and ferns that help make this area so beautiful.

This is the first of these posts, expect some more of the Grove of Titans when I can figure out which trees are which :)

Andy