厚厚...這顆紅杉樹, 樹齡有3200年了...等於遠古時期起, 就與人類同在. 哇嗚~~...很大很大, 大到沒人看過他的原貌, 高247英呎(7533公分, 比新光三越站前店稍矮一點而已), 樹幹寬27英呎(823公分). 雖然很老了, 還持續在凳大人, 每年還在長. 一群團隊花一個月的時間, 拍了126張照片才拼湊出這顆樹的全貌.

3,200 Year Old Tree Is So Massive It’s Never Been Captured In A Single Image. Until Now.

Cloaked in the snows of California’s Sierra Nevada, the 3,200-year-old giant sequoia called the President rises 247 feet. Two other sequoias have wider trunks, but none has a larger crown, say the scientists who climbed it. The figure at top seems taller than the other climbers because he’s standing forward on one of the great limbs.

The trunk is 27 feet wide and the his mighty branches hold 2 billion needles, the most of any tree on the planet. On top of that, he still adds one cubic meter of wood per year – making him one of the fastest growing trees in the world.

Giant sequoias exist in only one place, where The President and smaller trees that make up his “House” and “Senate”, reside. On the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas in California, at 5000-8000 ft above sea level.

The team painstakingly put together a set of pulleys and levers to climb the tree. It took 32 days and the piecing together of 126 separate photos, but they managed it!

Awesome stuff. Here’s some footage of the team at work:

Composting: Ken Geiger, NGM staff
Climbing Team: Jim Campbell Spickler, Giacomo Renzullo, Cameron Williams, Nolan Bowman
Technical team: Nathan Williamson; Marty Reed, Humboldt State University (HSU)

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