Big Spruce

We'll take time to visit Oregon's new champion, Big Spruce in Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge.
Hike (easy-1/2 mile) through a Sitka Spruce forest to get to Big Spruce. Big Spruce became the biggest Sitka Spruce in 2007 when the Klootchy Creek Spruce (below) near Seaside lost its upper half in the notorious December 2007 wind storm. .The Cape Meares spuce is 144 feet tall, 48 feet in circumference, 15.5 feet in diameter and an estimated 750 to 800 years old. (Find it by parking at the main parking lot. Instead of walking the paved trail down to the lighthouse, head for the northside viewing deck. A trail near the deck heads up into an old-growth forest. You pass many an impressive giant, but you'll know Big Spruce when you see it. It's also signed. The walk is about a quartermile.)
We'll take time to visit Oregon's new champion, Big Spruce in Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge.
Klootchy Creek Spruce -- A few miles before the traveler reaches Seaside, hidden on the north side of Hwy 26, is one BIG tree. There are a few signs, but it is all too easy to zip right by in the press of heavy Coast traffic, and never realize you just missed experiencing Oregon's largest tree. In a State blessed with many giant tree specimens of all species, this coastal Sitka Spruce was the Champ.  At least in the category most commonly accepted, that of "dbh," which stands for "diameter breast high." The tape put around this 750 year old tree needed to be over fifty feet long-- 52.5 feet to be exact. It shares the title with a tree in Washington as the world's largest Sitka spruce. The tree stood (see update note) slightly over 200 feet high, and appears to have had it top blasted off at least once by lightening in the past, as a large scar snakes down its mighty trunk (visible in the bright frame about fifty feet above the boys' heads)....TERRIBLE UPDATE 2008. This giant tree was snapped off like a twig by the "Great Coastal Gale" of early December 2007. If you go to Google Earth and zoom in to the tree's location, there are pictures of the sad sight. Whole swathes of coastal forests were laid flat by this event, which some experts say was the localized strength of a category two hurricane... One cheering detail that I noticed in a picture taken about 9 months later was one large limb extending off into space near the top of the broken trunk-- it looked alive to me, so maybe this giant will eventually struggle back, and 200 years from now will be looking odd, but bigger yet!

Big Spruce (above) became the biggest Sitka Spruce in 2007 when the Klootchy Creek Spruce (left) near Seaside lost its upper half in the notorious December 2007 wind storm (top).