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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Biggest tree of the world

newtribe@cdsnet.net
Thu, 18 Dec 1997 21:34:11 -0600

I am aghast that anyone could have interpreted my posting on tallest and oldest trees as having anything to do with harming them in any way. When we climb these trees we strictly use "soft technique" where NOTHING is poked into the tree, removed from the tree, or left in the tree. Perhaps the error in interpretation came from my reference to the Dyerville Giant "toppling". This was a natural occurence from waterlogged soil and the tree still lays where it fell in a California state park.

Many of the biggest redwoods grow in silt in riparian areas, making them at extra risk for blowdown. Several years ago, five of my friends spent the night at 300 feet in the 350 foot Humboldt Tree in September, and the following March after heavy rains it toppled. Examination of the site after the fall showed the soil to be only a little more solid than oatmeal. Believe me, a 350-footer hits the ground with explosive force. Even the guys who had been up that tree had a hard time recognizing any branches where they had rigged their Treeboat hammocks. Soil was ejected out from under the trunk, starting with basketball-sized blobs and gradually shrinking to fist-sized blobs 200 feet away.

Those of us who climb trees recreationally, and camp overnight in them, are always surprised that anyone thinks that we would harm these creatures we love enough to spend more intimate time with than any other visitors to the forest. We are less surprised when we get resistance from park authorities who have no knowledge of our safe and harmless climbing methods. But I would expect that arborists would be the first to know that such methods exist. To anyone with a passion to protect these giants, I suggest you direct your passion to slowing logging in the last old growth in this country. In my Oregon neighborhood there are a lot more big stumps than there are big trees left to climb. Three hundred years (an average age of the Doug firs, white pines, and ponderosa pines I normally climb) is a long time to wait for replacement trees to grow.
Tom Ness