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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
I used to live near Big Trees State Park, so when I heard about the clear-cutting planned for the area, I went back to see it for myself. My funky old cabin was still there, buried so deep in the woods that I used to see bears on my front porch as often as I saw people. And it was still just a 40 minute hike over the ridge to the giant sequoias in the park's North Grove.
Even at the height of springtime's exuberance, when Douglas squirrels squawk a counterpoint to the insistent tapping of white-headed woodpeckers and dogwoods splash color among the awakening undergrowth, this grove is pervaded by a deep sense of calm. The largest giant sequoias stand over 300 feet tall and measure as much as 32 feet in diameter near the ground; it takes 20 adults with their arms outstretched to encircle one. The limbs of giant sequoias resemble the trunks of ordinary trees, and their spongy bark can be as much as 2 feet thick. Slap your palm against it, and the bark makes a "tunk-tunk-tunk" sound, like a drum.
The author John Steinbeck called giant sequoias "ambassadors from another time" because, as a species, they have existed since the age of the dinosaurs, some 100 million years ago. Redwoods and dinosaurs, perhaps the largest plants and animals this planet has ever known, were the dominant life forms throughout the Northern Hemisphere for tens of millions of years. The sequoias' geographical reach has shrunk over time, however, and today they grow naturally only in some 75 groves scattered along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
Giant sequoias live so long because they are virtually indestructible. Fire cannot kill them -- their bark is fire resistant -- and their root systems encompass an entire acre of soil, so they can outlast even punishing droughts. Native Americans considered giant sequoias sacred and would not even touch them. Whites first discovered them in 1852, when a hunter named Augustus T. Dowd literally stumbled upon them when chasing a wounded grizzly bear into the forest. This was during the California gold rush, and when the boys back at camp heard Dowd's story, they naturally journeyed up to see for themselves.
Capt. W.H. Hanford, camp boss, saw a chance to strike it rich by turning the site into a tourist resort. To attract customers, he planned to fell the largest tree in the grove, cut a huge slab out of it, and display it like a circus freak in a traveling exhibition to San Francisco, New York and London.
Hanford set his aim on the Discovery Tree, supposedly the first tree Dowd had seen. But there was a problem: No saw or ax in the world was long and strong enough to topple the tree. So Hanford hired five miners from the gold camps who decided to fell the tree by drilling holes in it with long metal augers, as wide as a man's fist. After 20 days of drilling, the miners had punched an uninterrupted line of shafts around the entire circumference of the great tree.
Hanford invited a group of well-to-do ladies and gentlemen up to witness the spectacle, but the moment everyone was waiting for turned out to hold a maddening surprise: The tree refused to fall. As if in revenge, the Discovery Tree remained upright for another two days before giving up the ghost. Adding insult to injury, it waited until the assembled entourage was away at lunch before crashing to the forest floor.
Undeterred, Hanford pressed forward with his plans, including carving a saloon and bowling alley into the tree's fallen trunk. The Discovery Tree stump was converted into a dance floor big enough to accommodate a dozen waltzing couples. Soon, Hanford was sending handbills far and wide, inviting the curious to take the daily stagecoach ride from Sacramento City to see his extraordinary "Vegetable Monsters."
