Dog Soldier Coast Redwood - 35th

The "Romulan Titan"

Copyright 2009 - 2016 by Mario Vaden

 

This is a coast redwood found with Michael Taylor in 2008, near Lost Man Creek in Redwood National Park. This is not an illuvial flat, but upslope close to a tributary of Lost Man Creek. Dog Soldier lost a good portion of the top from storms over the years. This redwood and Hyperion were two of the more interesting bushwhacks of 2008. For reference, 2009 data for Dog Soldier listed this as the 35th largest known coast redwood:

Height 285' or 86.86 meters / Diameter 23 ft. / Volume 21,000 cu. ft.

This redwood was the first new titan in what I call the epi-center that led up to the 2014 Year of Discovery. The epi-center and years leading to 2014 included Orion, Tulkus and Episkopos. Dog Soldier is the redwood I don't recall anybody ever finding as of 2020. It is very obscure up one of the Lost Man Creek tributaries. That was surprising due to the number of people scouring the region for Hyperion in 2014. Not spotting a 14 footer is one thing. But slipping past a 23 footer ... It must have a cloaking device, so I also call it "Romulan Titan" as its alter-ego.

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The image below is not showing the whole base. Michael Taylor is t standing slightly elevated. The trunk extends several feet outside the photo on both sides. The trunk on the opposite side reaches about 10' below his feet.

One nice pocket knife of mine is up there somewhere. One of the large logs must have pulled the clip from my pocket. The reason for the name has to do with the history of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier to stand their ground. Not many redwoods of this size remained for so long in that area.