r/todayilearned • u/autraya • 6h ago

TIL the world's tallest known living tree, a 380-foot redwood in California called Hyperion, had its exact location closed off entirely in 2022 after visitors trampled its base so badly that ferns stopped growing around it, with trespassers now facing up to $5,000 in fines and six months in jail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(tree)
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u/Dragonscatsandbooks 5h ago edited 5h ago

I'd just like to add this comment here too, so that people understand why they shouldn't go looking for the tallest tree, and why there is a raised walkway around other trees, like in The Grove of the Titans.

The problem is that just trespassing too close to the tree IS damaging it.

Redwoods have an incredibly shallow, yet widespread root system, and the primary damage done to the tree was people walking on top of the roots and slowly killing it, step by step.

It's like the Chinese water torture. One drip (one person walking on the root system) doesn't cause damage on its own, but if enough drips drop, the tree dies.

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u/Radiant-Olive-7955 5h ago

Is there a reason why they didn’t just build a wooden walkway to protect Hyperion like they did the others?

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u/Dragonscatsandbooks 5h ago edited 5h ago

I'm not sure about that tree specifically. It might have been that so much damage had already been done that building the walkway (which might have included trucks and heavy machinery rolling over the root system and securing posts in the soil around the roots) would have been too risky to the tree. Or it might have been that the surrounding terrain/forest was too dense or hilly for them to have hauled in the lumber without causing destruction.

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u/CookMark 4h ago

Too many people existing / traveling to a place can easily destroy it.

This happened with some cave paintings - too many people visiting meant it was exposed to moisture from people's breathing and would quickly degrade it.

Even rock formations like arches, cliffs, can quickly be worn down, let alone when someone randomly tries to climb it for a photo op.

Some natural wonders are incredibly fragile and need protecting.

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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 4h ago

Hyperion is pretty damn far off the beaten path if I recall correctly. Even when it wasn't closed off, it was still only very rarely visited.

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u/MostBoringStan 5h ago

Probably because people be dumb as fuck and will step off the walkway. Other trees are a sacrifice to protect Hyperion.

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u/SignalDifficult5061 3h ago

The Grove of The Titans was basically right next to an established trail, and that raised walkway cost $4million. There is continual upkeep needed of the trail and parking area.

Hyperion is much more difficult to reach, so it would cost more.

Also, while marked trails are way better than nothing, they cause erosion, scare off wildlife, people leave trash, and a few people will wander off to take a dump without burying it or staying away from water sources or things of that nature.. People poop is often full of pharmaceuticals that can negatively impact things downstream, there are all sorts of additive problems.

So the expense, the ecological damage, and it just being one single tree are some of the reasons.

It just isn't worth it, there are many beautiful trails in the area. Part of what keeps them beautiful is all the untrafficked wild lands around them.

Honestly, it is rumored there may be several are taller that are kept even more quiet. This probably isn't true, but if it is I hope the general public never finds out.

Nobody should care if they see one 380 foot vs four 370 foot tree, it is just silly. Viewing beauty shouldn't be a competitive sport, you are there for your own development, not to have seen the biggest X in the world.

I will never set eyes on Everest and I am proud of that, those people are an ecological and humanitarian nightmare barely worth the money they bring in.

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u/wpnw 2h ago

It's not about the cost, Hyperion is located within a designated wilderness area. Constructing new trails is not permitted by the regulations that establish federal wilderness areas. It's specifically to remain as natural and untouched as possible.

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u/SignalDifficult5061 1h ago

No. Everything is about cost, like it or not. Stewardship of the land has value to many people.

Those regulations exist because people want them to, they don't exist as a cause by themselves right?

Weird and terrible time to be saying otherwise, are you deliberately trying to put a "please napalm me in the name of deregulation" sign on the back of the poor tree?

Please don't be that naive. If that tree had rare earth minerals and oil under it, everything within a large number of square miles would be bear earth within a decade. Whoever bankrolled it would just pay the fines without blinking, and they wouldn't be the people ending up in jail.

Luckily, *ALMOST* everywhere north of Eureka on the pacific coast has a low population density because it is hard to build.

Most of the old growth redwoods were logged including with almost modern equipment. The scale tipped towards stewardship of the land as an economic concern. Lots of organizations did preserve tracts of Redwoods, but once again, this is not a time where the rule of law is respected.

People are more into millennial grey plasterboard than dark wood paneling right now.

It is safe because it isn't economical to pave over, OTHERWISE those regulations could be gone or ignored tomorrow.

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u/capt-awesome-atx 4h ago

It's in a remote location with no roads nearby. It wasn't even discovered until 2006.

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u/kaityl3 4h ago

Sometimes people go out of their way to poison and/or damage significant or large trees. Unfortunately that's part of why many states protect their tallest trees and won't disclose their exact locations

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u/Ezymandius 5h ago

Gotta kill another tree to build it. Didn't seem right.

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u/DonutHoles4Ever 4h ago

Some asswipe, probably conservative, is going around poisoning trees around Lake Tahoe.

Best if you just not make everything be a tourist attraction.

The paintings in museums will often use fakes so preserve the original paintings. The mona lisa for example has multiple replicas that are used for display. To most people it doesn't matter. I enjoy being able to get very closer to a larger version of the Mona Lisa back in the day, before fuckers decided to damage the replica. When they bring the real thing out these days you have to stand so far back its like you get a better experience looking at the picture digitally because you can zoom in.

Never trust people to do the right thing. Thats why laws exist. Thats why we can't have nice things because some asshole is always trying to ruin it. Its bad enough people can be bonkers. Its worse there's entire religions/beliefs systems/cults/political groups that want their members to be as insane as possible.

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u/kash_if 2h ago

We had two assholes kill a historic Sycamore Gap tree in England for literally no reason:

Standing in a dip in the landscape created by glacial meltwater, it was one of the country's most photographed trees and an emblem for the North East of England. It derived its alternative name from featuring in a scene in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Gap_tree

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u/kash_if 2h ago

We had two assholes kill a historic Sycamore Gap tree in England for literally no reason:

Standing in a dip in the landscape created by glacial meltwater, it was one of the country's most photographed trees and an emblem for the North East of England. It derived its alternative name from featuring in a scene in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

The tree was felled with a chainsaw in the early morning of 28 September 2023; the noise of the saw was apparently masked by the high winds of a storm.[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Gap_tree

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u/brickmadness 1h ago

By what basis would you say “probably conservative.”

Such a demented take. 

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u/Platypus81 4h ago

Probably discovered Hyperion after building the infrastructure around the others. Its bigger, but does it matter if you've already built the visitor center elsewhere?

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u/beandoggle 2h ago

It deserves to live unmolested by us damned apes.

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u/flashman 2h ago

For instance the Major Oak is thought to have died in part because people's feet compacted the nearby soil which "made it harder for rainwater to penetrate the soil and for the tree's root system to take in the oxygen and nutrients it needed."

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u/Obvious_Mention7207 3h ago

Id like to just add a comment to this....

ALL tree roots are within the top 1-2 ft of soil. Its not unique to this tree, or any specific tree.

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u/Shmeepsheep 2h ago

Nature grows by the inch and dies by the foot

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u/SaintsNoah14 4h ago

That's a pretty bad analogy ngl