mdvaden

Anyone ever read Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast by Van Pelt? This is the Sir Isaac Newton redwood that he included. He said the burl on the side weighs over 20 tons (18,143 kilograms). Yes > 18,143 kilograms. It's a lot bigger than it looks.

Fairly close. 4 hours drive to Grant's Pass Oregon, and maybe 90 minutes more to the redwoods. I leave about 7 at night, and near midnight, park my truck and trailer at a rest area on a hill above the Oregon California border around midnight. 6 or 7 in the morning, I drive down another hour or so into the redwoods and near noon get my campsite. Reservations are online as of May 1st. In winter, I just go find a spot. Even last weekend when I reserved, 80% of sites were open half the week. There is a redwood motel in Crescent City called the Curly Redwood Lodge that starts at merely $54 per night. Sometimes I stay there a couple of nights. www.curlyredwoodlodge.com Forgot the Elk ... The fuzzy antlers look pretty nifty this time of year. Found a bunch of other stuff, and finally saw the Howland Hill Giant in Jedediah Smith park. Also a redwood called Artemis in Prairie Creek which has a spring like creek running beneath it. Saw 2 species of Trillium flowers I had not known about. Northern California has quite a few wildflowers.

Ths funky limb is on a redwood along Brown Creek Trail in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Only a couple of most popular trails had like maybe 10 cars at trailheads. But overall quite and peaceful. The jug handle opening is on a hemlock deep in Jed Smith redwoods. Probably an old crack that's enclosed with new growth. Looks interesting.

Here's a few pics from my last two visits in the redwoods. Last weekend, and about 3 weeks earlier too. Tossed in some mossy Bigleaf maple and vine maple for those who like those. The one big tree pic, is an unknown giant we came across at the end of one day as it was getting dark. A giant salamander - cool skin - and a calypso orchid. Saw the old truck in the small trees along Bald Hills Road above Redwood National Park near the hilltop prairies. Small cab, but dang, that truck had an amazing bulk of leaf springs for it's size.

Reminds me of working at a golf course in the 80s - a greenskeeper got close to a squirrel crossing the fairway, and the squirrel launches at him and starts a Tasmanian Devil attack. Geez - never seen anyone flail and shake their arms and legs like that before, to shake the critter. A few seconds later the squirrel ran one way, and the worker the other.

Looks like a giant bird nest. Is that typical of the aerial roots on that species?

Is there any cavity above it with a small stem - like one of it's germinated seeds, or a shrub growing in it? Otherwise - likely roots from it's own tissue.

Never really had a problem with desktop or laptop. We tend to upgrade every 3 or 4 years. My laptop has been around for a couple of years - part time use. Our oldest son's has been fine. Ever tried an external drive? I use one to backup a lot of photo and video file stuff and all else. It enables it and my desktop to store the greater masses of data and keeps me from needing an excessive grade laptop for storage. Mine is an HP and ours son's is too.

That's pretty tall. I think the tallest in our city is 73.76 meters / 242 feet. In the park about 15 minutes from here. Those are indigenous to this area. When I was young, our home was across from about 100 acres of Douglas fir. One of my favorite forest trees. Has a real nice fragrance. There are some conifers that got put into the coast forest west of us, that will be amusing to watch. Some Giant Sequoia. They grow great. But it would be a surprise if they reproduce. It's experimental in one fashion or another. They are barely a 100 feet tall. The spire tops really stand out. But there are no Giant Sequoia indigenous to Oregon.

The banners look nice down the right side. One thing more about this site - it deserves the advertiser support. The moderation and management of this site seems very on-top-of-it. It's the kind of site an advertiser can list their ads without embarrassment.

This is one side of a spot that had near 1 meter long up and down claw marks - one on the left and one on the right ...

You're welcome. The full uncropped image of the scene above in 4000 x 5960 pixels is one of the nicer photos I've managed to get - but too much detail to post (presently) This next image is a safe one to post, as it merely shows the same angle as shown in the National Geographic video about the tallest tree in California. If you play the video, note the view where the person is sitting on the log holding the line. Same angle as the attached photo. Video: World's Tallest Tree Towers Over California So that view is already published. The first image I posted appears to be the first image online from that angle: hence the cropped reduced size for now.

Had a chance to bushwhack and find Hyperion Redwood last Friday. Was going to wait for spring, as I wanted to enjoy exploring, not just rush looking for one tree. When I got down to Orick, California, for what was just to be a weekend of hiking, I realized that the rivers were not high - had not rained too much in the past week or two. And temps were reasonable. Never did need to wade upstream deeper than my pockets. Was actually just probing to get acquainted with the one valley, more so than find the redwood. And with the good weather, kept progressing higher and higher in elevation. The unexpected sun stretched the useable daylength. Won't be sharing the location, but will offer that one video on Youtube by Spickler, appears to exaggerate. And technically, no valley in that park is "lost" or "uncharted" as some written material says. It is remote though - that's a fairly accurate statement. A lot of bear activity. There was so much evidence of bears, I was surprised to have not seen hide or hair of one. Will just start with little images for the present ...

I'm surpised I deleted my web page commenting on Roundup / Glyphosate. I wrote something after a garden forum user posted something that was cherry-picking the worst case scenerios. Like that someone could die by drinking like 3/4 cup of glyphosate. That would be like 1.5 cups of Roundup. Can you imagine ... how many folks do you know who take even a mere straight shot of Glyphosate? Anyhow, as far as the herbicide, I've got concerns that it may be absorbable by the cambium if applied too heavy, to some degree. But in general, I think that light to moderate essential use is fine. I have used it over a garden of clay soil that was double dug, ammended with mycorrhizae and organic matter, and noticed that various fungi mushrooms still grew. Spot spraying as needed was all I did. Most of the articles I've read about potential damage to health or microorganisms are worded like "can kill" or "may cause". The articles do not say "WILL cause" or "always destroys". Every aticle against Glyphosate includes selected text and vocabulary to try and sway the readers, rather than present JUST the facts from a neutral point of view.

For some reason, I preferred small chunks of apple or cherry for my smoker. If I was cutting it for smoking, I'd have the 6" diameter and smaller being cut into 2 to 4 cm thick discs, using a Makita carpentry saw. Other - with no branches - could be run though a chipper that would make fine chips. I'm thinking that the most valuable wood in many trees would be where the trunk branches outward to the scaffold limbs. Wouldn't that one piece, if wax-sealed on the cuts for slow drying, be useful for wood workers doing lathe work like bowls and stuff? 8" wood would make great firewood. But the premium longest straighter ones would probably make for valuable small woodcrafting lumber.

I like that one. Thou shalt always have 3 points of contact. Thou shalt keep 2 of every tool. Thou shalt not low bid. Thou shalt wear ear plugs when pruning in hawthorn / Crataegus Thou shalt not leave the site before checking the contract, that each plant is done. Thou shalt not leave a job site without a tool count and every tool box slot filled. Thou shalt not select the a tree from the sunset end of a row in a nursery. Thou shalt not prune every defect out all at once, if 30% canopy is already removed. Thou shalt not forget that the sneaky dirty spark arrest screen mimics a plugged air filter. Thou shalt remember that one sign of a hazard tree is a tree with a climber in it.

So ... last autumn, I came across this tree and decided to refer to it by the name SKULL RACK. The thought or question came to mind if a redwood with this kind of trunk could be free climbed rock style by fist jamming. The trunks reminds me of the walls in a rock climbing gym.

I've been pestering a few guys elsewhere - about redwoods or Sequoia the past week Well here is one of the trees that recreational climbers can go to sleep thinking about like counting sheep.

Photo below FROM AN OLD STORM. I think I've posted this image before. Seems that many of the biggest trees at the Oregon coast, break or die first, then decay some and fall over. Took this photo about 6 years ago. Pretty sure it was a Western Hemlock. The small ones are Douglas Fir and hemlock. The curved trunk provides the historical dateline. It's base shows it was vertical once when the big log was vertical. The size of the small one seems to be just about right to have fallen in the huge 1962 storm, when winds were probably in the 130 mph range.

Guessing the 100 to 110 mph range - or 160 to 175 kmh. It was either a Sitka Spruce or Western Hemlock. The DBH was just over 24 inches or so - maybe 60 feet tall. Not an enormous top. No decay. There was a lot of rain before and during the storm. Odds are the continual rocking of the tree loosened the soil.

Rerun tonight on Cable TV. Actually an interesting episode, because it mostly involves the huge wind storm we had in Oregon a year ago. Odd - the man clears trees from the road and lines wearing Chaps, but no eye protection. An improvement anyway. Never did see this episode before. Old Guy - says no one living has seen a storm like that one ... Hmmmm ... 1963 ... Google the "Columbus Day Storm" - top wind gusts recorded to 130 mph and estimated near 178 mph. Lots of trees down at the coast range for either storm though. Anyhow, it looks like the storm gave the show a shot in the arm Image below - one of quite a few that blew - thin pancake root plates. Won't be but a few years until the small craters and roots get covered with ferns and moss. Looks wierd now, but almost makes the forest look even better in a few years.

I sat through a slide-show that John Deere tractors did for the city of Portland Park Bureau workers years ago. There was a guy that simply jumped down into a grain silo, where only soft grain should be. There was a pipe down there aimed upward that got into the grain somehow, hidden, that rammed his groin and did a complete cookie cutter of his genitals. They showed all actual injuries. The frame prior to his injury, they showed 2 cherries dangling as a preparation intro to the image of this guy at the hospital. Goes to show that if you can't see it, don't assume nothing is there.

The vision for the recreational climbers could be an impossible dream. But it seems like an untapped resource, like a gold mine waiting to be mined. It would be dissapointing if the use of volunteer rec climbers was like gems that are impossible to reach.

A few weeks ago, I posted an essay online, pertaining to the potential Wear & Tear / Canopy Trails, from research climbing. The Essay here ... Potential Canopy Trails - Wear & Tear in Old Growth Forest Some extra reading and study the past few days, while virtually snowed-in, has transformed the page in ways I did not expect originally. At first, I barely mentioned recreational climbers. This week, the page almost ends with a paradox. In your area, are there forests frequented by either research or recreation climbers? Are there courses over there geared toward the amateurs - rather than arborists?