This week TSG visits another casualty of our winter storms, the Advocate Tree. Over saturated soil, a large "goosepen" (burned out hollow in the trunk) and a steep hillside perch loosened its roots and the giant crashed down the canyonside all the way to Aptos Creek. It was largest old growth redwood in the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. Over 260 feet "tall' and estimated to be over 1000 years old, The Advocate has passed on to its new role in the ecology of the forest floor.
It wasn't exactly easy to get to the big horizontal dendroid though. Due to a series of misadventures* and less-than ideal trail conditions, it took a couple attempts to reach it.
*we originally took a path that landed us on the wrong side of the creek,
then got turned around and went the wrong direction for about a mile
then got turned around and went the wrong direction for about a mile
4 comments:
Dang. That's a shame. And, man, could you make a lot of porch furniture out of that guy, huh? Wonder what the estimated time is for that tree to now naturally more or less completely disappear?
If the park remains intact...and who's to say that it will...that tree will remain fairly intact for hundreds of years at least. Great fallen trees abound in the Sequoia and Redwood forests. It's not hard to imagine they've been there for centuries.
Wow, what a fun walk!
I wonder if the Park Service will put a fence around the fallen Advocate as a safety measure. Walking the tree is a cool and fun thing to do and a bunch of folks have obviously done just that. But slipping and falling off could result in some pretty serious injuries.
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