Famous sequoia tree falls
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The Pioneer Cabin Tree, the California sequoia that had had a tunnel carved in it in the 1880s so that people, and for a time cars, could travel through, has fallen.
Jim Allday of Arnold is a volunteer at the park who was working there Sunday. He said the tree went down about 2 p.m. and “shattered” on impact. He said people had been walking through the tree as recently as Sunday morning.
It’s not clear why the tree fell, but probably had to do with the giant sequoia’s shallow root system — the roots only go about two or four feet deep — and the fact that the trail around the tree was flooded due to rain. “When I went out there (Sunday afternoon), the trail was literally a river, the trail is washed out,” Allday said. “I could see the tree on the ground, it looked like it was laying in a pond or lake with a river running through it.”
Please consider donating to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar below. Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Regular readers can support Behind The Black with a contribution via paypal:
If Paypal doesn't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
The Pioneer Cabin Tree, the California sequoia that had had a tunnel carved in it in the 1880s so that people, and for a time cars, could travel through, has fallen.
Jim Allday of Arnold is a volunteer at the park who was working there Sunday. He said the tree went down about 2 p.m. and “shattered” on impact. He said people had been walking through the tree as recently as Sunday morning.
It’s not clear why the tree fell, but probably had to do with the giant sequoia’s shallow root system — the roots only go about two or four feet deep — and the fact that the trail around the tree was flooded due to rain. “When I went out there (Sunday afternoon), the trail was literally a river, the trail is washed out,” Allday said. “I could see the tree on the ground, it looked like it was laying in a pond or lake with a river running through it.”
“Its not clear why the tree fell”
Maybe this had something to do with it:
“The tree was hollowed out in the 1880s to allow tourists to pass through it, ”
They cut a 10′ by 10′ hole in the thing! Duh!
Did anyone hear it fall?
Yes, but the person that heard it fall is an Obama supporter and could not bear the truth, so in their telling of the story its still standing.
The first fallen celebrity of 2017.
Localfluff – beat me to it ;)
Cotour,
It sounds like that person is in his safe space.
There aren’t many drive-through trees left. It seems that two of them have fallen in the past half century, and one of them, like the Pioneer Cabin Tree, is no longer available to drive through but is available to walk through.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_058751.pdf
When I was a wee little tyke, just old enough to remember the excitement of it, my family drove through the Wawona Tree in Yosemite, probably contributing — along with the hole in it — to its demise a few years later. Sorry about that. At the time, it seemed like fun, although too brief.
Would the tree still stand if it didn’t get hollowed out?