Ponderosa Pine Recognized For Its Size
By Dylan Darling, Redding Record Searchlight
May 28, 2008

Forester Tim Lovitt was taking a break for lunch last summer when a massive tree on the other side of the meadow made him put his food down.

"I said, Holy mackerel, look at the size of that tree,'" he said.

As he and a colleague -- who were doing a stream survey that day -- walked toward the ponderosa pine about two miles from the Forest Glen Campgound near Hayfork in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, its seemingly preposterous proportions came into focus.

"It started getting like Jurassic Park," said Lovitt, who works seasonally for the U.S. Forest Service. "The closer I got to it, the more I felt like an ant."

Lovitt didn't have the proper equipment to gauge the size of the tree when he first saw it, so he returned in the fall to size it up.The dimensions: 240 feet tall, or as tall as a 24-story building; trunk circumference of 290 inches, or almost 8 feet wide and a crown width of 70 feet.

Figuring he'd found a whopper, Lovitt said he did some research into large ponderosas and found a national registry for large trees, not just the pines. Compiled by American Forests, a nonprofit conservation group started in 1875, the list catalogues big trees around the country. For the registry, at www.americanforests.org/resources/bigtrees, points are given for height, trunk size and crown width. Lovitt said he was elated when he heard from American Forests that the ponderosa he found was the biggest the group had nominated for the list.

"It's the biggest in the world, I think," he said. "I know it's the biggest in the United States of America."

While the Shasta-Trinity is proud to have such a big tree among its woods, Mike Odle, the forest's spokesman, said there are not immediate plans to cut a trail to it.

"That's still too early to determine," he said. "We want to make sure we preserve these trees."

Lovitt said he has yet to do a core sample to determine the tree's age, but figures it is centuries old.

"The tree has probably been around since Columbus," he said.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.