# Let's See the Killer Trees You've Photographed!



## Fishfreak911 (Jul 14, 2010)

I was inspired to start this topic after reading Grumpy's "Interesting Trees" post. I want to start a bit of a different one though, as I have always been wowed by the enormity and the majesty of trees and all they provide to humanity. I find myself always taking pics of the one or ones that move me. This is a compilation (which has taken me several hours to write) of some of my most memorable.

This time, I's like to keep the internet out of it. What do I mean? Well, let's only post trees that you or someone you know photographed and include a bit about it. WHY did you photograph it? What significance does it pose to the surrounding area? Where and when did you photograph it. I'd be interested in seeing anything out of the ordinary. Big, small, pretty, burly, lightening struck, whatever. * Just please don't post stuff you find on internet search engines.*

Ok, I'll start us out with a few from my past decade. It's a veritable tour of California, and a bit from outside the state for good measure. I hope you enjoy. I had a good time trying to remember all the places I saw all of these cool trees.

This dead tree is on Fort Hunter Ligget in Central California. These two Bald Eagle(there is one on the upper right branch)s found it a rather nice perch. I was there to fish the lake with my Bro-in-law, but they beat me to it, so we just took a few pics and moved on.



This next pic is my wife (in Red) and me (up Top) on a burned out stump of a redwood up in Humboldt State Park. This is one of the most amazing places on the planet. I have never seen more biomass anywhere. Probably even more than the jungles of Belize or Costa Rica. (coming up) We ent RVing with my wife's best friend and her hubby. Actually, now that I think of it, I am pretty darned sure this tree was still alive. Redwods have to have forest fires to grow properly, and propogate. 


This is the famous Founders Tree. It was amazing to see how tall they are. Sequoias are def. larger in girth but the height is immense!
Here's a really cool 360 virtual tour of the immediate area if you want to get a better feel.



Below, I (or maybe a walker) am standing on a large redwood burl. Nope, didn't even consider it. Ok, I did. 


Eddie walking along a downed redwood. Some of these things were longer than a football field! 


Here's one of the long ones. We had to walk a couple hundred feet down the trunk to get on top, then walk back to the huge (but shallow) root mass. Redwoods are prone to being blown down when 70+ mph winds gust through their canyons. We actually saw many downed trees.





Note the fire scorch marks on this beast. Also note the sucker coming off the side towards the left.


Another huge downed tree. The large fern growing off it was kinda cool, I thought.


My Wifey and me.


Playing hide & seek in a burnout cavity. All four of us could fit, but someone had to take the picture!


The biggest fallen of the trip. I hope the picture conveys the magnitude of the size of this thing. It was awe-inspiring!



Me and my honey again next to just-another-giant.


Note how the tree takes much of the surrounding vegetation with it. Including grass, small trees and ferns. Eventually, they just melt right back into the forest floor.


This is another famous tree: The Giant Tree- The tallest redwood as I understand it.




For these next 4, move down to Southern Ca. They are some really cool trees hanging on tooth and nail to the granite boulders they reside on in a steep canyon just outside of Los Angeles. I like to fly fish this canyon.
This is looking down canyon. Note the bicyclist for size reference.


A close up looking down canyon.


A view looking directly perpendicular to the canyon wall.


A view looking up canyon.
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Back up North we go to Yosemite N.P. This is me fishing a lil roadside stream for small wild rainbows from a large fallen Ponderosa Pine. If you ask me, it looks like lightening took it down.


Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls. My wife flanked by a ton of Ponderosa pines.


Bye bye YNP-A sea of trees, here we come Pacific Coast!


Over to the coast we go to Carmel, home to Clint Eastwood. This mongo tree branch is over 25 feet long horizontally! You can see where they had to prop it up using a pier piling.


Traveling down the coast we come to Santa Barbara where one of the coolest and oldest cultivated trees on the West Coast survives after some 136 years! It's MASSIVE! You may have seen it while driving up 101 along the West Coast. Please read the sign below as it explains its historical significance.




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This is a trip to Hawaii I took around 2003. I dunno what king of tree it is, but I had to get a pic with it apparently! 


This is a trip to Hawaii I took in 98. A bit younger there I guess. 


Hiking up in the High Sierras Back Country is a passion of mine. This tree was so bright yellow, I just had to shoot it.



Then we found one even yellerer. I loved this angle, so I shot it!


Let's move on up North again, but WAY North! One of my most favorite places on the planet…Alaska. These trees are quite significant in that they are harboring at least a dozen bald eagles both mature and immature(brown and harder to spot) Unfortunately, LJ cuts off the right-hand side of teh photo and several more eagles with it!


Walking down a bear/fisherman's path alongside the infamous Kenai River, my buddy & I ran across this poor beaver's folly. This was a massive tree, as you can see in relation to my size 12 or 13 wader boot, but alas, it fell away from the river so he abandoned it. I could not believe how big the chips were that this rodent was making. some were 1/4" x 1×2!


I was always tripping out on how small the pine trees were in many parts of Alaska. I think it has something to do with permafrost, or too much water. Anyhoo, my buddy and I wanted to take a picture of us in this pygmy forest.




Another "cliffhanger" from some island in the inside passage of Alaska.


Let's fly south, wayyyy south to Costa Rica, where I bought several hundred plantation grown teak trees in my 401k. Here are some of them. Pretty neat traveling down the pot-hole ridden streets of back country Costa Rica to find my trees.



Walking Fig- This young rain forest tree can literally walk, albeit slowly, till it reaches better sunlight-A scarce commodity in the dense jungle.


One of the unbelievably large trees from which this zip line tour ran it's runs from. It was truly exhilerationg to be launching from one live thing to another!

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I hope you enjoyed! Happy New Year!


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## GrandpaLen (Mar 6, 2012)

Very interesting, thanks for sharing Mother Nature's Wonders.

Work Safely and have Fun. - Grandpa Len.


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