World Records, Discoveries & News
This page includes information about M. D. Vaden tree discoveries and world record finds from some years ago when I spent more time doing what's often called big tree hunting. Several finds were of scientific interest pertaining to the growth potential of some species. Nowadays I'm more focused on just photography.
Discovery 2014 | USA Largest Known Coast Redwoods
2009 - 2018 quite a few redwood giants were discovered in Redwood National and State Parks. Several became new largest known coast redwoods.
2014 - 2015 four new diameter champions were found for the coast redwood species. The widest of these moved coast redwood ahead of all Sequoiadendron for the largest known single trunk diameter in the USA: world's widest too.
One of these coast redwoods is estimated 4000 years or older, raising the question whether it could be the world's oldest tree with no way to ascertain the answer.
Read more: THE BIG KAHUNA
Discovery 2012 | USA Tallest Maple
October 2012, Mario Vaden found and measured"Humboldt Honey" a newly discovered world's tallest known maple. This bigleaf baple was the new height record for the entire maple (Acer) genus. It was found July 19 2012, south of Eureka in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
Read more: 2012 Maple Discovery
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World's Tallest Pines Discovered 2011
January 2011, Mario Vaden joined Michael Taylor in Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest for tall pine tree exploring. The expedition found 4 new world's tallest pine trees (Ponderosa).
The KGW story was written by Paul Fattig, January 23, 2011. A team of arborists, Ascending the Giants, was invited to climb and measure using a tape-drop method. The climb revealed the accuracy of Michael Taylor's ground-based laser measuring, because their tape drop differed by only 1 millimeter.
That climb by Ascending the Giants was done October 11th, later that same year.
Read more: 2011 Pine Discovery
2011 - World's Tallest Hemlock
Found when the 2011 Tsunami from Japan hit the USA west coast. Read more: Record Western Hemlock Tsunami2011 - World's Tallest Live Top Douglas Fir
Read more: Tallest Douglas Firs2009 - World's Tallest Port Orford Cedar
Read more: Record Port Orford Cedar
World's Tallest Christmas Tree 2011
December 2010, Mario Vaden was contacted by Richard Stenger of Humboldt Convention and Visitor's Bureau in Eureka, California, regarding Ferndale's live Christmas tree.
Mario met Richard and drove to Ferndale to laser measure a 150 ft. tall Spruce. Meanwhile, Coeur d' Alene claimed to have the world's tallest Chrismas tree, a 160 ft. tall pine.
The Ferndale Spruce measured 151.25 feet.
This trigggered a "food fight" of news and claims and re-measuring in Idaho as Ferndale and Coeur d' Alene continued the rivalry for the world's tallest living Christmas tree.
In the end Ferndale took the crown. The Coeur d' Alene Press finally ran a story in 2011. Apparently, Coeur d' Alene had incorrectly measured years earlier and the re-measure proved that Idaho's tree was shorter.
Discovery | 2011 | Falcon's Tower Sitka Spruce
Near Manzanita and Oswald West State Park. A contender for the Oregon champion Sitka Spruce.
Read more: Largest Spruce Trees in Oregon
Photos below from the 2011 measuring of the world record pine near Grants Pass. In the top right photo, the climber is not ascending but traversing horizontally through the air about 200 feet up from another adjacent Ponderosa Pine that he is climbing in the left photo.
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