This is a picture of possibly the biggest Ponderosa Pine (DBH) in Yakima County. It is located on Meeks Table and is well known to hikers in the area. This isn't the tree that the following article is about, I just post this picture because it gives the idea of what it's like to search for local big trees. I'm measuring this beast with my walking stick.
I want to take a break from ceramics and share a story that happened several years ago. Around 1985 I was hiking in the William O. Douglas Wilderness, packing out the remnants of an old Elk Camp that had been abandoned. One evening a friend wandered off into the wood to water a tree and returned with some startling information. He told me that I should check out a tree to the north of our camp, at the edge of a nameless meadow. He said it was “god awful big” and I might be interested, knowing that a few years earlier I had helped a friend nominate a large Mt Alder tree to the National Register of Big Trees.
What I discovered was truly large (in circumfrance) hemlock. I wrapped a parachute chord around the tree, tied a knot at the measurement and didn’t think much more about it as I was sure that the Nation’s largest Mt. Hemlock would truly be a specimen of unique proportions.
That winter, while cleaning out my back pack I noticed a strange knot tied in my rain fly chord and remembered the large hemlock of the previous summer. I stretched the chord, up to the knot, on a tape measure and noted the length (around 26 feet). Later, I crossed path with a copy of the current Big tree register book (this is before the internet, the web, email, cell phones, microbreweries, Katy Perry, and an awareness of deadly metorites ). Strangely, this register seemed to indicate that MY “Hindoo Mt Hemlock” truly might be a contender for the Nation’s largest specimen. I resolved to get back in to the tree with a tape measure and satisfy my curiosity.
Here is a Jo Miles photo of a Buckskin Larch snag (read, "dead tree with the bark worn off and aged by the sun). Dead trees aren't eligible for the National Register but this picture is so unique I just had to post it here.
Around 1988 I returned to the tree, but had forgotten my tape measure and realiscope (for determining height) but had remembered to pack an old fashioned film-type camera. I re-measured the tree with the same parachute chord, took a couple of pictures and again resolved to return.
When I returned home I got a copy of the nomination form and realized that only a formal measurement and application would qualify the Hindoo tree to the register. Over the years I tried to talk friends into joining me for a return to the tree but it wasn’t until 2009 that I finally found someone willing to embark on such an ardous adventure, after-all, the hike is 9 hours one way, over a ridge into a forlorn basin, up an abandoned trail to the top of a mountain, around the mountain to a lost meadow, and then, again, locate that tree.
In 2008 my son, Matt graduated from law school and returned home for a few months to recoup, strategize, rest, and drink my beer. One day he stated he wanted to take a really challenging hike, not some weeney hike of no consequences, but a REAL unique, one with consequence. I mentioned the “big tree hike’, leaving out the length of the trip while focusing on the glory of possibly becoming the nominator of the largest tree of a species in the nation, and possibly the world. He was game.
We arrived at the trailhead early one day in late August and proceeded to hike down the MJB Trail, ford Rattlesnake Creek, climb Timberwolf Mt, skirt around the fringes of the mountain into a trail-less area, find a nameless meadow and then locate, again, that huge tree. We had remembered the tape measure and camera but figured we could simply estimate the tree height. What we discovered when we walked up to the tree is that a large forest fire had come within 50 yards of the tree but had burned itself out and saved the tree.
These are some of the measuring tools we used to determine diameter of the trunk and tree height.
Measurements were followed by a night in the Wilderness, then a return to Yakima where I submitted my information to the National Register of Big trees. In cases where we were not sure of our measurements we estimated on the low side to be fair. Matt guessed the tree was 120 feet tall, I thought more like 100 feet, so we averaged the two guesses and submitted 80 feet in our application. Also, not being foresters, it was questionable that the tree was a Mountain Hemlock, as the western hemlock (an inferior tree of little consequences) is somewhat similar to it and also found in the same area. A branch and needles I carried out seemed to satisfy a friendly forester, but what do foresters know?
The Hindoo tree is hard to photograph but here is an angle. The tree can fork but the fork must be above 4.5 feet (this fork is about 9.5 feet above the ground). I wish I could nominate a tree with a clean, straight trunk, perhaps the big Ponderosa I have yet to find will make a better picture. Here is a close up of the tape on this beast.
January 1 of 2009 dawned fresh to our awakening realization that our nomination was not really up to the standards that the big tree folks expect for the 2009 edition. We needed expert help in establishing our credentials, so it was up to me to find a willing expert. Barry Donahue, U. S. Forest Service Wilderness Ranger agreed to accompany me to the tree and vouch for my measurements if I would help him monitor some camp sites in the area. He was also interested in a possibly shorter route to the tree. We departed in the late summer of 2010 on a three day hike. The tree was re-measured with better instruments, some campsites were monitored, and we determined that the shorter route was actually a day longer. Later in the summer I was assisted by U. S. Forest Service certified Silviculturist Matt Dahlgreen for further certification. Matt required knee surgery the following winter and I want to thank him at this time for sacrificying his knee, for all the pain he endured, the cost of the surgery, the time required for recovery and for remaining somewhat cheerful throughout the ordeal, as it was all for a good cause.
In June of 2011 the 2010 big tree register update was published on the American Forestry magazine web site (of that name) and Matt (Hiler) and I were listed as the nominators of a National champion. The moment was relatively anticlimactic but none the less, from time to time, someone will now say, “you are the co-nominator of a big tree, WOW” and all the hardship and pain that all of my friends and son and I went through has come to successful fruiation. Can I say it was truly worth all of the effort? Probably not.
When we were measuring the tree an old sheep herder type derelict (bum) wandered up and pointed to the top of the tree. We weren't sure what he was pointing at, perhaps he saw a flying saucer? Anyway, here is the photo taken by Mike Cochran.
End of story.
Footnote. While there are some who might think that the National Champion of a tree species means it is also the largest in the world, and thus the universe (and beyond), it must be remembered that Mt Hemlock ranger north into Canada. Also, to claim world champion status would require a lot of traveling in far flung countries to validate that claim, though it seems reasonable. Frances Hare, now deceased, was a Yakima native who was interested in all things “Yakima” and most things “tree” was a champion of this nomination and without her encouragement, it might never have come to bear. Once, when we were discussing the tree I mentioned casually that I was sure this tree was the biggest Mt. Hemlock in the country, and therefore probably the world and/or universe. Frances heard me out and then replied in a calm voice, “well Mike, I don’t think you can really say that”… and so I have chosen to not.
