My lovely, lovely Heather sent me this synopses from a New Yorker regarding the ‘tallest tree in the world.’

Richard Preston, Dept. of Amplification, “Tall for Its Age,” The New Yorker, October 9, 2006, p. 32

Writer tells about Chris K. Atkins and Michael Taylor discovering two extremely tall trees while bushwhacking in a remote stretch of Redwood National Park. The first, which they named Helios, was measured at 375 feet. The second, which measured 371 feet, they called Icarus.
Previously the tallest tree was Stratosphere Giant, at 370 feet… The laser range finders that Atkins and Taylor used can get a reading to within a few feet, but the only way to measure a very tall tree accurately is to climb it.

One of the first people Atkins called after finding Helios was Stephen C. Sillett, a professor at Humboldt State University. Stillett studies the redwood canopy by climbing the trees. He began to assemble a team to make the first ascent of Helios.

Before he could do so, Atkins and Taylor discovered another redwood that was even taller than Helios. They named it Hyperion and estimated that it was 380 feet tall…

For years, scientists believed that the world’s tallest tree was a redwood discovered in 1963 by Paul Zahl of Naional Geographic. At that time, timber companies owned most of the redwood forest. Tells about Zahl’s expedition and discovery of a tree measured at 367.8 feet.

Discusses the creation of Redwood National Park in 1978. By the time the park was formed, about two-thirds of the land in it had been logged. Other groves of redwoods are protected by state parks, such as Humboldt Redwoods State Park…

On September 16th, Sillett, Marie Antoine, James Spickler, the writer, and several others hiked into the valley where Hyperion stands. The tree’s trunk is fifteen feet across at the base. Tells about Sillett climbing the tree using ropes and mechanical ascenders.

Often enough, when scientists encounter something unusual living in a redwood, it proves to be an unknown species.

“This is a young tree,” Sillett remarked. “It could be six hundred years old… It could get to 390 feet in our lifetime.” Measuring by hand, he determined that Hyperion was 379.1 feet tall. Definitely the world’s tallest tree. Seeing a nearby clear-cut, Sillett said, “I think the tree was less than two weeks from being cut down.”

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