More Exceptional Trees From Redwood National Park

[M.W.Taylor]

Yesterday, John Montague and I did some off-trail exploring of Redwood National Park. We found one tall redwood (over 350') and one large redwood (probably over 20k).

Here are the stats for the two great redwoods.


Redwood#1
Name: Jeroen Koornwinder Tree - AKA J.K.
Dbh: 18.3
Height 354.4'
Location: Barranca Creek

Redwood#2
Dbh: 22.6' (functional dbh)
Height: TBD
Volume: TBD

We used a prism pole survey to the base of the JK tree. It grows on a fairly steep hill. The tree has an iteration on the west side of it that helps give it a huge diameter. The main stem is probably about 15' in diameter. It was getting late in the day when we found the large volume tree. John intends to go back to it to measure the trunk volume and height. The tree is a single stem giant.

It was a great day to be in Redwood National Park exploring with John. These 350'+ and 20k+ redwoods are getting harder and harder to find. We used LiDAR to help us find that tall one.

[yofoghorn]

Nice! How was this 350-footer missed? Do you think others have been missed? Live top or dead top?

[M.W.Taylor]

Zane, This one has a live top. The original top died and then side leaders took over to form a nice broad, healthy crown.

I am surprised this one was not already measured by S. Sillett, C. Atkins or M.D. Vaden. They were measuring LiDAR trees in this area not long ago. This one somehow slipped under their radar.

Michael

[John Harvey]

Nice finds. I was in Del Norte and PC over the last two days. Didn't get to do too much deep exploring with the toddlers but there are areas of Del Norte that make me wonder if a couple 18' dbh trees could still be hiding in that park, Even if quick tapering trees.

[John Harvey]

This was one of two 16' dbh trees in Del Norte I came across. This one was a very slow taper similar to Browns Creek tree just thinner with a broken top. I know the conditions are not ideal for the trees to get too large there but a few could be hiding over 18'. I know of one John had shared with me and know of a couple others. Lots a steep nooks in that park.

[yinghai]

Nice find! I agree that new 350' is rare because of Lidar. But it's still hopeful to find 20k trees. I think John and Max found a few of them over the past year. 30k on the other hand, seems to extremely hard to find.

[mdvaden]

Nice find! I agree that new 350' is rare because of Lidar. But it's still hopeful to find 20k trees. I think John and Max found a few of them over the past year. 30k on the other hand, seems to extremely hard to find.

Anything can be "hopeful" ... but actually finding something 20K that hasn't been found before is slim pickin's to almost nil anymore. After a chat with Hildebrant and Beranek, and realizing where Taylor and Atkins have been, there's less undiscovered than many people realize. Noted in my pages updates the past few months. Wouldn't surprise me if someday Beranek digs up an old photo of this "Darth Vader" from some excursion 10 or 20 yrs. ago. He really made the rounds.

[MaxF]

I wish I had been around for some of the bonanza years to gauge the rapid succession of 20k findings compared to now. Because, as slim as the pickings may be, in my experience over the last couple of years, it feels like new 20k candidates continue to be found with some regularity.

With so much focus on >18' dbh, I have to imagine there could be a fair number of 20k candidates under 18' too. Over a quarter of Michael's old >20k list were <18'.

Michael, judging from what I saw on your old list, if you weren't interested in the tree from a height perspective, or it wasn't an Atlas tree, do you have an opinion on how much attention has been paid to assessing volume of 16' to <18' trees in general?

[MarkGraham]

Great finds. For that JK tree, it looks like you have to step off into space to reach the lower part of the trunk.

[mdvaden]

I wish I had been around for some of the bonanza years to gauge the rapid succession of 20k findings compared to now. Because, as slim as the pickings may be, in my experience over the last couple of years, it feels like new 20k candidates continue to be found with some regularity.

There's no question 20K are being found with regularity. But likely rarely as new discovery. Over the past 10 yrs., a surprising number of low profile bushwhacking enthusiasts have emailed scores of giant redwood pics, but sort of moving-on to their next adventure and not really cataloging. Most all are like the guy from Germany, who never post photos online, don't use blogs, and don't have a FB page. The lion's share are local folks I never heard of until they emailed. They have been particularly fond of PCRSP and RNP. There were far fewer off-trail sharings about HRSP.

It may go back a two or three generations too. What comes to mind for example, is the old abandoned coastal highway through PC and several huge redwoods along that route, creek and valley. People have been road building, exploring and traveling there for generations. Local outdoors men and women have forged many excursions in that area.