A few years ago, I was exploring Redwood National and State Parks with a friend Thomas from Germany. Our first bushwhacks encountered the redwoods “Caveman” and “Capt. Jack Sparrow” (world’s widest single trunk). May 3, 3014, we set out exploring again and discovered a huge “curly redwood” in Jedediah Smith park. The dark shaggy bark in heavy shade inspired the name “BIGFOOT”.

Apparently, BIGFOOT is the largest known single trunk curly redwood tree. Big Tree in Prairie Creek is apparently a curly redwood also, but Bigfoot’s trunk and wood volume is larger.

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These were the beginning of an exploration that later involved Chris Atkins, leading to finding new largest coast redwoods in various valleys of Jedediah Smith park. After Thomas stayed in Germany for a while, Chris joined me for several exploring adventures.

The chunk of wood below is curly redwood, the same kind of wood used for the Curly Redwood Lodge motel in Crescent City. This chunk of wood fell from Bigfoot, revealing the unique wood grain inside its trunk. It is not caused by stress but is more of a genetic or growth variation. It’s not rare, but not common either.  At Crescent City, if you go inside the Curly Redwood Lodge motel lobby, you will find a table made from curly redwood that was split and not milled. The grain looks just like the photo below.

When we found Bigfoot, I knew it was huge. And lately, we learned that the trunk volume is over 30,000 cubic feet. Where is ranks compared to other single trunk redwood giants remains a mystery for now. And being a curly redwood makes it very unique.