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Largest coast redwoods and new discoveries 2008 - 2021
The middle 1/3 of page reviews redwood explorers 1963-2006
Rumors and other stuff are near the the end.
Mario Vaden | I.S.A. Certified Arborist - PNW 5584A
This information is also presented as an arborist report regarding facts about new discoveries.
People may credit us with big tree discoveries, but our finds are nothing compared to God creating these wonders. Give credit where it's really deserved.
Redwood National and State Parks now has the widest and tallest redwoods surpassing Sequoiadendron for girth and height, placing Sequoia sempervirens toe-toe for size. Coast redwoods below are samples of new 2008 - 20201 discoveries. Over 200 diameter records, titan size trees and 18' - 29' diameter dbh redwoods combined. Even an unusual 235 ft. weeping Hemlock. The largest single trunked redwood is the Big Kahuna in a grove which eclipses the 1998 Grove of Titans. At least 2 coast redwood discoveries exceed the 1321 American Forest points of General Sherman Sequoiadendron making coast redwood bigger than that national champion tree using that point system. Read Coast Redwood: The real Giant Sequoia
In 2019 I updated an age estimate to over 4000 years based on the finding of eight 3000-ring trunks. Read: Is the World's Oldest Tree a Coast Redwood. A few new height records of other species from past years are on the World Records page, but coast redwood updates are mostly added here. In 2021 a Sitka spruce height record was discovered moving Picea to 2nd tallest species in the world. If the post is still online see Taylor's post ENTS BBS 100m species. A large hemlock was also found January of 2016 exploring with Chad Olson in Jedediah Smith park. It would be new California state champion but we decided not to nominate. That hemlock is named Hail Storm and you may find posts online where the name is wrongly attributed for a largest fused trunk coast redwood found in 2014.
Quite a few albino redwoods were also found in Prairie Creek, Jedediah Smith and Humboldt RSP.
Continue reading below the image ... woman shown for for scale ...
Ever since the 2008 Dog Soldier discovery in Redwood National Park it was evident more unknown redwood titans must exist. The recently found redwoods also include a diameter record Capt. Jack Sparrow (aka Jupiter), which only appeared in one news story (World's Fattest Redwood / Lost Coast Outpost July 2015). Early 2017, a favorite DARTH VADER was found. Huge fallen titans like Lost Man's Fault. In 2019 more tall redwoods were discovered in Humboldt. And 2020, we found the world's tallest Sequoiadendron (video) planted outside the indigenous range, near Eagle Point, Oregon.
What is "official"?
Discovery virtually never originates from rangers, NPS or Guinness Book. A small guild of explorers and experts find and measure and when that small alliance determines a new discovery, then it becomes more official than official because rangers or Guinness Book (etc.) have no other "cistern" to draw from. Think back to several redwood height world records. Each one was found, then afterward relayed to rangers or authors. A national champion is not a champ because American Forests or the National Park Service says so. The height record existed because someone like Michael Taylor or Chris Atkins found and measured them accurately. Then over the course of time, other organizations are brought up to speed and updated once discoverers are ready to disclose what they found.
Also for example, when Dr. Sillett was interviewed by the Statesman Journal about Grove of Titans prior to boardwalk funding, he was quoted as saying "We now know of larger trees elsewhere". And what are they? Guinness Book couldn't tell you. Rangers didn't know the answer. But Steve knew, along with Michael Taylor, Chris Atkins, Zane Moore and a few others.
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What does this all mean at this point in time?
For me ... I have seen the heart of the park where most people will never go, but my trekking pole is crooked, and my legs feel it more. These days I explore more slowly and return to a few spots once in a while like New Hope Grove. I hoped to explore more around Devil's Creek but someone new to bushwhacking can tackle that. As stated below toward the end, your chance of finding a new largest coast redwood is maybe a 0.01 % chance !!
The biggest reason we found new discoveries was simply getting out away from the Grove of Titans. For years other people scoured Jedediah Smith trying to find that grove and afterward just kept going back again and again to admire that same grove or similar redwoods without searching new area. I did likewise briefly but we changed habits and started exploring Redwood National Park and finding new trees elsewhere. So many discoveries followed, we didn't get back to the Grove of Titans for almost two full years.
But right now, almost all my time in the redwoods is just basic hiking and photography and some redwood wedding and portrait photography.
(707) 465 - 3474 at 700 Hy. 101 S. Crescent City, CA 95531
The era of giant coast redwood discovery is basically gone !
Research will continue but the days of hunting unknown largest redwoods is almost a thing of the past. The remaining old growth is mostly explored. To hitch a ride on the tail end of this era was like running for the last car of an old train and someone reached out a hand to help me leap on board the last train that would ever steam down the tracks.
Some discoveries were not specified but any redwood may appear genericallly at the mystery pages of the main redwood page menu. Regarding the one Big Kahuna shown above, Taylor commented "not surprise me if the total volume of this beast is over 40K cubic feet" (main trunk alone). Compare that to old discoveries! Melkor's trunk is 33,500 cu. ft.. Del Norte Titan is 33,670 cu. ft. with 9.5% volume from 43 reiterated trunks. Iluvatar has 12.3% in over 100 stems and main trunk 32,890 cu. ft. It reasoned redwoods this large remained in Redwood National and State Parks.
In 2014, John Montegue found a coast redwood in Redwood National Park with circumference 107.8 ft or 34.31 ft. ground diameter and 27 ft. dbh. Weeks later I discovered a redwood 27.4 ft. diameter. May 2015, John reported a record 29.2 ft. diameter coast redwood (Capt. Jack Sparrow aka Jupiter). John's list of (everyone's) 18 foot and wider redwoods is approximately 400 total. The discoveries moved coast redwood past Sequoiadendron for greatest diameter and coast redwood became the widest species in the USA. Capt. Jack exceeds Sequoiadendron for girth at dbh and at ground level (footprint). Knowledge of new finds is apparently not known or taught at visitor centers of Redwood National Park or Sequoia National Park.
Actually, Capt. Jack Sparrow is the widest single trunk tree in the world. There's a cypress in Mexico said to have the world's widest trunk. But some arborists climbed and decended into its interior where there is a "room". And that room isn't decayed or burned-out. The walls are lined with bark and cambium which means the entire is actually a group of trunks, because a single cypress trunk would never form an inward-facing bark and cambium like that.
I added the Church redwood on the blog too, which is almost as wide as Del Norte Titan. It has a cave that may be largest room in a living single stem coast redwood. The Church redwood also has huge volume. The previous link was its page, but follow this next link to my Church Redwood Video
(707) 464 - 2137 at 701 Hy. 101 S. Crescent City, CA 95531
One mystery unravelled!
When John encountered the 29.2 ft. dbh redwood in 2015, I was curious where it could be that I had not seen it before. Months later while bushwhacking with Chris Atkins, we learned the 29.2 footer was a redwood Thomas Hahn and I found in 2009 when we bushwhacked together in Jedediah Smith park. We exited the bushwhack a different direction and didn't make it back again to measure and photograph, hoping to return another year. John encountered the same redwood later in 2015, taking definitive tape wrap measurements. Due to our encounter in 2009, I call the diameter champ Captain Jack Sparrow whereas John calls it Jupiter. Whatever name you choose, it's not among my photos, just as Bigfoot and several other redwoods are not in my albums or website.
John gets credit for discovering the diameter, and anybody else can use whatever name they wish. It reminds me of a tree called Redwood-Ed in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park at the Valley of the Lost Groves. Ed Gilbert and John measured and named it around 2016, whereas Lowell Cottle (seasonal ranger) and myself tape wrapped it October 24, 2008. But Ron Hildebrant or Steve Sillett saw it 15 years earlier around 1993. Some of these redwoods are bound to get double names and repeat findings.
While the era of coast redwood discovery fades into history, the frontier ahead is redwood photography. Photographers have barely scratched the surface. The heart of the redwood forest has never really been captured. It requires time and going places others won't go. For me, this is the new era of coast redwood photography. One other adventure I can share, was the opportunity to ascend some redwood canopy in 2019. I shared some about it at Old Growth Redwood Climb video
Continue reading below the image ... Chris Atkins shown for scale
Explorers of the Redwood Coast
Among the explorer network, Ron Hildebrant goes back years with Michael Taylor. After Dyerville Giant of Humboldt Redwoods fell March 24, 1991, after a strorm, Michael and Ron teamed-up to calculate height using marks on the adjacent "Cat Scratch" redwood. Dyerville Giant was discovered around 1966 by University of California scientist Paul Zinke and graduate student Allen Stangenberger. Taylor and Hildebrant realized the fallen Dyerville Giant was actually an unknown potential world record.
In February 1993, by phone, Zinke told Michael Taylor to watch for his other finds tagged 12, 13, 14, or the Three Peas in a Pod. Taylor and Hildebrant first became friends around Christmas 1990, and their first expedition together was February 1991 in Humboldt Redwoods State Park searching for tallest redwoods. Between that winter and the next summer is when Taylor began his quest for largest coast redwoods. Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park was Taylor's starting point.
Michael Taylor and Steve Sillett met autumn 1994 after Taylor spotted a super tall coast redwood. When Sillett arrived with a climbing team to measure, he noticed a small #12 tag, meaning it must be one of Zinke's Peas in the Pod. This is the same redwood they named Telperion. The group also spent a night up in it high canopy during a small rain storm, sleeping in customized hammocks called Tree Boats, acquired from New Tribe of Oregon. Telperion fell during the next strong storm 1 or 2 months later. The team may have escaped death by a matter of weeks. By 1996, Sillett climbed and confirmed Taylor's Mendocino redwood as a new world record for that era; 367.5 ft. And they found others together around the same time like Pipe Dream in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
1987, Sillett's first exposure to the famous redwoods overlapped enrollment at Reed College where he studied botany. He eventually went camping at Prairie Creek, involving his legendary free-climb of a big redwood with friend Marwood. They used a smaller adjacent redwood's limbs to reach 70 feet, then leaped into the big one, and to the top. They obviously made their way down, but with some conflict with yellow jackets. The same week, Taylor, who had already experienced the redwoods at a younger age, was 15 miles away with a tour group in Redwood National Park.
In 1996, Sillett was hired to teach at Humboldt State University, and moved to Arcata from Corvallis, Oregon, three years after meeting Taylor. Sillett was very busy but managed to squeeze in a few hikes and bushwhacks with Taylor. Sillett also applied to Redwood National Parks at that time to climb coast redwoods for research. That is when Redwood National Parks established a permit process for scientists. There was no established climbing permit process for redwoods before. This is when the study and climbing began in Iluvatar and Atlas Grove redwoods. Sillett already knew Robert Van Pelt, a long-time explorer of other Pacific NW forests. He contacted VanPelt, taught him redwood climbing techniques, then Robert (Bob) joined the Atlas Grove study project. In 1997, Sillett called Taylor and started teaming with him to explore Redwood National Park on foot for more tallest redwoods. 1998 is the year Sillett and Taylor discovered Lost Monarch up in Jedediah Smith, the largest coast redwood known for that era.
Soon after in 2000, Chris Atkins heard about Taylor. They met and teamed together for many explorations including discovery of the world records Helios and Hyperion in 2006. Earlier, Atkins broke the world record himself in 2000, with Statosphere Giant in Humboldt Redwoods State Park; it moved ahead of the Mendocino coast redwood for at least four years. Together they found at least another hundred redwoods 350 ft. and taller.
We should note Paul Zahl, who, in 1963, led a small National Geographic expedition to what later became Redwood National Park. Finding no world record at first, he flew back east, but returned shortly and discovered the Libbey redwood: a world record that held the title for quite a few years. Zahl seems one of the shortest-lived redwood explorers, but I think the effort deserves attention. His discovery was also useful leverage to help secure Redwood National Park. Much of their quest did not have the present-day trail system to get around. He practically had to bushwhack the midst and banks of Redwood Creek. They finally found an old logging road to get into new spots.
Most of these discoverers are named in Forest Giants of the Pacifc Coast by Dr. Robert Van Pelt, or Richard Preston's non-fiction redwood adventure book. This is part of the network in a nutshell. Check out my review page on that Preston book because another explorer of a different sort is mentioned: G. F. Beranek.
Around 2008, I was contacted by Steve Sillett and Michael Taylor, about a month or two apart. Taylor invited me to explore and explained his methods. Sillett invited me to check out potential study plots and explore with him and Dr. Robert Van Pelt (aka The Lorax). Eventually Sillett offered me part time work assisting Chris Atkins to measure other tallest redwoods associated with a LiDAR project. In those years and following, I found new notable or record trees with them, some on my own, and met other people involved with the research network: Marie Antoinne, Jim Spickler, Giacomo Renzullo, Anthony Ambrose, Dr. Hiroaki Ishii and Kenneth Fisher. This is where I joined the redwood forest network. I still have strong interest for exploring but started photography and portraiture through my redwoods experience and plan to focus on that more. I still keep an eye out for notable redwoods and other species.
For the LiDAR redwoods, Chris Atkins preferred camping, and we spent many evenings enjoying campfires and talking about the day's adventures as fog rolled-in over the redwood park. The few times I helped Steve Sillett, cabin lodging was in style, with home-cooked meals.
Meanwhile, I watch a few others picking up the quest of exploring. Zane Moore is an albino redwood enthusiast and committed his path to related college courses. Zane will follow the path of botany and forestry, and his experience is beginning to grow. John of Humboldt has an emphasis looking for fat redwoods and recording dimensions. But aside from Zane, new redwood enthusiasts like John do not understand nuts & bolts of the forest's biggest species.
What really set apart explorers like Van Pelt, Sillett and Taylor, was not just a good eye for spotting new discoveries. It was their connection with the forest, understanding it more with every season. Each one of them was a forester, arborist and naturalist of a sort. Even Chris Atkins is more of a naturalist than some realize. These men and their collaborators went beyond the basics of smart sounding quotes and bare bones basics. They learned to read the forest like a book, watching its story unfold as countless chapters continue to be written.
In our generation, Atkins, Van Pelt, Taylor and Sillett set a new "bar" for exploring and research. They have advanced tools and techniques, but their commitment to detail is outstanding. For example, I observed Taylor's ground-based laser measure come within one millimeter of a climb team's tape drop! Contrasting, John Muir published that a giant sequoia's age as 4000 years. The rings were recounted years later by a researcher, who found the real age close to 3000 years. With Atkins, Taylor or Sillett, a 1000 yr. exaggeration or mistake would never happen. That would be unimaginable. Likewise, Hildebrant is pin-point accurate. Everbody has a strength and Muir definitely had his place in conservation. But for exploring, a few of today's explorers repaved the highway for measuring and research. Decades ago, I think Wendell Flint wanted to be even more accurate, but lacked a few of today's tools and technique. Flint is on the record for removing bulges from his volume estimates, a refrain from exaggeration. I think he would have enjoyed exploring with Atkins and Taylor, had Father Time allowed.
Breaking with Tradition
Some remarkable redwood photos and stats were withheld after learning about a few people who triggered wear around some redwoods. So the full extent of new discovery is not published, People inquired if we found coast redwoods exceeding volume of General Sherman. Given everything found and realized 2013 to 2020, I'm 100% certain General Sherman is no longer the largest in volume for single trunk. It should be safe to say that the mystery giant does not rise higher than 332.13'
We decided to break with traditions and not nominate new largest coast redwoods to American Forests. For decades the trend was big tree hunters nominate most any new find. We see no need. At the moment, species withheld from American Forests include coast redwood, hemlock, maple and spruce. To help others understand, a few years ago it was reported someone sawed small trees around a discovery in southern Oregon. That doesn't fit our style of discovery. See more in this regard at Screaming Titans
Redwoods people encounter & emails
People often send emails about redwoods they encounter, wondering "does it have a name?" ... "has it been found before?" In a nutshell, almost nobody finds something noteworthy that Taylor, Sillett, Atkins or Hildebrandt hadn't seen years ago. Unless somebody finds something in a rare size class never seen, discoverers or researchers may have little interest.
After a long talk with Ron Hildebrant, it's evident more coast redwoods than we realize were found many years ago. His exploration exceeds what author Preston conveyed in his book. The chance for of a new 30,000 to 40,000 cu. ft. coast redwood is probably 1%. And the chance for a 50,000 cu. ft. (+) by amateurs maybe one-tenth of 1%
But the parks are vast and unexplored slivers may take 10 years or more to mop up. Beyond 2019 new discovery should be rare. It reminds me of people "scraping the bowl" when their stash depletes.
Inside scoop about permits, rangers, etc.
Take heed !
For context, before 2014, many redwood enthusiasts and scientists didn't reveal research grove locations. Likewise the policy of parks and rangers. Around 2012 to 2015, various people emailed scuttlebutt about some "ranger" or visitor center divulging locations. It wasn't something I needed to know, just commentary people shared.
But in 2014, park rangers told me they expect permits for anyone seeking new largest redwoods. Even for just wrapping a tape around the base, which is on par with any typical tourist counting arm spans. Yes .. that's the way some government bubbles operate
So I applied for permits in 2014 and 2015, but had concern. A permit means agreeing to disclose new finds in writing, but I did not know if what people emailed was rumor or fact. I expressed concern to a park scientist. Unknown to me, he forwarded my feedback to other offices or rangers at Redwood National and State Parks, apparently triggering a run for cover or anger. Months later, a few rangers pointed fingers of scorn at me, saying "no such thing would ever happen" at their end.
Fast forward a few months .... a reputable redwood enthusiast and legacy member with Save the Redwoods, hiked with us on Flint Ridge trail. Hearing of this conflict, he confirmed that a ranger leaked to him the location of a research redwood, contrary to park policy. He specified an Orick ranger ... one who aimed scorn my way. The ranger may even have told him with good intentions to spare his time.
Months later, someone else connected with the parks emailed me confidentially, further confirming.
Even if tips were given with good intentions, that's beside the point of rangers speading negavites behind my back when it was their staff who asked for permits. And for me to express concern prior to signing a permit application was the right thing to do.
This ordeal proved to us that one or more RNP staff must be lying or spreading false rumors, but thankfully most rangers are not like that, and some cover our backs giving a heads-up as needed. So when you explore the parks, think the best of rangers in general. At the same time, the parks lost support. Our advice to everybody else is to skip permits and just go under the radar.
Update: June 2021, I wrote to a supervising ranger in Orick about this. I included a photo of our hiking trio the day the truth surfaced in conversation along Flint Ridge trail. After several years, it seemed right to confront the Orick office even if the other rangers may have left.
$1000 donation for the Grove of Titans
In 2016, we sent a letter and check to the Department of Parks and Recreation to help contend with environmental impact at the Grove of Titans in Jedediah Smith park. For their purpose I am listed as the sender, but a large part came from someone we can express a big thank you, Mark Graham. Photos showing impact are provided on my Screaming Titans redwood page.
In the few years following, total donations grew to over 1,000,000, apparently with Save the Redwoods League getting involved to raise even more funds.
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