Today’s Illustration: It Toppled!

On This Day: January 8, 2017 — Historic Tunnel Tree Toppled By Weather!

Redwood pioneer-cabin-tree

“Visitors pose beneath Pioneer Cabin, a famous sequoia tree in California, in 1899. The opening in its trunk was large enough for a four-horse stage-coach to drive through. On Sunday, the tree was felled by winter weather.”

May 1976 — The Klamath Tunnel Tree Completed In Under Two Days

Klamath Tunnel Tree 1

In May 1976, retired United States Air Force Major and former Del Norte County supervisor Harold A. Del Ponte hired two nephews, one an engineer and the other a tree faller, to carve a 7.33 ft wide and 9.50 ft tall tunnel, large enough for automobiles, through the trunk of Tour Thru Tree. They completed the job, using a 7 ft long chainsaw, in just under two days. As compensation, Del Ponte offered his nephews $600 cash up-front or half of the tourism proceeds perpetually. Never anticipating that Tour Tour Tree would become a popular tourist attraction, the men opted for cash.”

“The Klamath Tour Thru Tree, near Klamath, is the most recent drive-through tree, carved in 1976. The tunnel was created while taking care that critical areas of living wood was not damaged.”

The Klamath Tree is one of many such “drive through” trees — successful and unsuccessful. Other such drive-through trees include the Chandelier Tree, Shrine Drive Thru Tree, and the Tunnel Log — see link or link.

Facts & Information:

Sequoia: Also called “California Redwood” or “coastal redwood.”

Reaches a height of 300 – 375 feet and 8 – 30 feet in diameter. The Statue of Liberty is 305 feet high.

““You crane your head back and you look up, up, up, up, and it becomes a blur as you get into the crown,” says Lucy Kerhoulas, professor of forest physiology at Humboldt State University. You can’t really know what’s up there, unless you actually go up and climb,” which Kerhoulas has.” — https://www.kqed.org/science/1926434/the-giants-of-california-how-redwoods-and-whales-got-so-big

Bark: Up to one foot deep / thick

Roots: Shallow & wide spreading. Many of the roots interlock with other nearby redwood trees — Roots: 10 – 13 feet deep and 60 – 80-foot spread —

“Those roots would normally put such tall trees in danger of being ripped free and toppled by high winds. However, each tree intertwines is roots with those of nearby trees, adding strength and stability to the group or grove.” — see hunker

Growth: It the redwood tree is toppled or burned by a forest fire, it will typically regrow quicker and faster than most any other tree.

Redwood and Tanoaks trees “proved themselves highly resistant to fire. But the redwood was nearly indestructible. “One year later, even large trees where all the foliage was scorched off were covered with a light green fuzz of new foliage,” said Berkeley Ecologist Benjamin S. Ramage, who led the research project. “Of trees over 1.5 feet in diameter, maybe only one redwood out of a hundred was killed.” — save the redwoods

“A fallen Redwood will commonly send shoots up as new trees and indeed this is how many trees get their starts.” — see trees of mystery

Water Demands:

“The tallest and oldest trees are found in deep valleys and gullies, where year-round streams can flow, and fog drip is regular.” — see wikipedia

They grow higher where there is “fog” available because the tree cannot pump water that high and it is the fog which provides the water demands to the upper portion of these trees.

“Scientists estimate that a large redwood can hold 34,000 pounds of water.”

Redwood: The wood is both distasteful and/or poisonous to various insects, and that is what also makes it an ideal wood for homes and closets. Redwood is also very resistant to water and therefore rot.

Lifespan: “Redwoods have an average lifespan of 500 to 700 years, but some individual trees have been known to reach ages of 2,000 years.” Approximately 85,000 acres are covered with these grand redwoods.

Key Illustrative Thoughts:

• Its strength rests not in depth of root, but its inconsecutiveness.
• stability
• strength
• God’s creation
• amazing / almost unimaginable
• The tallest redwoods are found where (fog for water and roots interconnected). . . . .
• trees which span generations
• fog is sometimes a friend
• water
• not deep, but wide
• God’s other ways to get water a tree
• fallen but regrowing
• so high that you can’t see the tops
• Looking up, it becomes a blur.
• Even it finally toppled.
• Huge!
• “eye has not seen”
• “big enough to drive a car through”
• it toppled