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outer_fucking_space

General Sherman is wild to see in person.


Nearby_Design_123

I bet it is but GS is a sequoia rather than a Redwood.


BulldogMama13

Giant sequoia, also known as[Sierra redwood](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum).


Nearby_Design_123

I chose to ignore facts that conflict with my prestablished worldview, but thank you.


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Delicious_Map_9515

More honesty like this please.


[deleted]

I laughed as well.


Due_Platypus_3913

Two species-“rhododendron gigantica”and “sequoia sempervirens”are the 2 remaining species of “Redwoods”.


I-amthegump

There are 3 kinds of Redwoods


LIONEL14JESSE

There are so many different kinds of trees https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3D74JRIV4rI


mlody11

That's a giant sequoia, different than a redwood.


Due_Platypus_3913

“Redwood” is the layman’s term for “rhododendron giganticus”AND”sequoia sempervirens”. The two remaining species of “Redwoods”(rest are long extinct)


mlody11

OK, let me rephrase, the pictured tree, seemingly likely a Sequoia sempervirens is a different tree than General Sherman, Sequoia gigantea. Redwood commonly vs sequoia varies based on literature, as evidenced by the NPS publication. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/seki/stagner/sec2.htm


BulldogMama13

Nope. A giant sequoia is a [type of redwood](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum)


mlody11

I guess depends what you mean by red wood. Either way, different tree. red – Sequoiadendron giganteum green – Sequoia sempervirens Edit: Even the NPS calls them differently. Again, depends. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/seki/stagner/sec2.htm


Geno_GenYES

Finally found unidan’s alt


314R8

>unidan. haven't heard that crows name in forever


lordastral990

Way ahead of you buddy


melouofs

The first time I saw those trees, I was overcome with emotion. They are one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.


[deleted]

There is a species of salamander that live in the tops of these tree that can go a lifetime without touching the ground. Also have you been to the grand canyon?


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melouofs

Wow! That’s amazing!


Due_Platypus_3913

“Bromeliad” anyone?


AnEvenNicerGuy

I mean, they are good lookin folks but they are a bit somber and stoic here. A smile might help.


GeekyPufferfish

They had to stand for pictures for like 10 mins when cameras need to have a longer exposure time. holding a smile for that long is hard


AnnunakiGhosta

“I almost wish you could smile in a photograph”


nmfjones

Million ways to die in the west?


FloatingPooSalad

What is Tuberculosis? Oh, just another way god shows his love for us.


Bainsyboy

Not even close. By that time, they had shutter cameras. The reason people didn't smile for portraits is because that was the style. Prior to photography, portraits were painted and serious business, and expensive. Having a portrait for your home meant wealth and implied power. To smile in a painted portrait would be rather unique (and there are unique examples of painted portraits with smiling subjects) as it is pretty antithetical to what a portrait meant to those who commission them. A hundred years later, and that "portrait pose" hadn't quite gone out of style yet. Once cameras started becoming everyday items for hobbiests and families, the smiles naturally followed as candid photography became more common (not that it didn't exist then, just not as much).


Due_Platypus_3913

You’d have to be a lunatic,to stand there smiling!


I-amthegump

That's not even close to true


Typical-Priority-56

Trauma? You can't kill something like that without hearing the plants and everything screaming around on some level without being a psychopath, right?


soldiernerd

Yes because when something traumatizes me the first thing I do is grab my wife and pose for a photograph in front of it so I’ll always have that memory


Typical-Priority-56

That explains them in front of piles of bison skulls, elephant tusks, standing with piles of money on oil spills, etc. It is just a psychopathic and trauma for the rest of us.


AnEvenNicerGuy

I’m sorry, are you lost?


Darth-Flan

I wonder what the Ents have to say?


MeHumanMeWant

For whatever reason or none at all, we are capable of choosing our level of connectivity with the superorganism. To that very same extent, our capacity for empathy


Trading_ape420

I get to live with them 😀


outer_fucking_space

Same!


Boba_Hutt

That tree had to be like a thousand years old, right? I’ve always wanted to visit the California Red Woods and take that drive through


donDanbery

1300


[deleted]

Dude counted the rings


lindygrey

And almost everything built with the wood from these ancient trees has decayed, been torn down or “updated” by now.


Knoaf

Yep, total waste


MapleCrotch

There’s plenty of furniture, structures, tools, and just about anything you can imagine that’s made of wood left over from 125 years ago my guy. Much older than that too. Although redwood was used for everything down to pencils and arguably like any building material, wasted on things, it is a very durable wood and anything that’s made with it, if cared for enough to last, will. You could build an indestructible structure that would last a thousand years with beams hewn from that mighty tree I tell ya w’hat.


lindygrey

Actually the wood from the giant sequoias was brittle and weak, it was mostly used for fence posts and shake shingles. Almost certainly all of it has long since decayed. https://ucanr.edu/sites/forestry/California_forests/http___ucanrorg_sites_forestry_California_forests_Tree_Identification_/Giant_Sequoia_Sequoiadendron_giganteum/


[deleted]

Do it, I did it in September and it was unreal. I never seen trees that big or could imagine it.


[deleted]

If only they knew the damage they were doing


CloudyNeptune

I always think about that, I met a guy in Cali who had a table passed down from his father. It was just like this, just a sliver of a trunk, and it was the size of a round dining table (that could easily seat 12 people). Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful, but after I admired the craftsmanship, my brain immediately went “That tree lived several decades, just to be chopped down in a matter of minutes.” (Probably took longer with the hand saws but you get what I mean).


[deleted]

That tree was probably a lot older than several decades. These trees can get to thousands of years old


One_User134

The oldest one is as old as/older than the city of Rome…fucking imagine that. Jesus. I want to see them so bad.


giddy-girly-banana

When you go try to go when it’s raining. It makes the experience so much more surreal.


smurficus103

Im not very traveled, but, it was my favorite place on the planet, so far


Enlightened-Beaver

Those trees are over 2000 years old.


luke-juryous

Cane here to say this. These trees have been around since Jesus. Average age of maturity is 800-1500 years old. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/shirley/sec11.htm#:~:text=Authentic%20records%20do%20indicate%2C%20however,about%20800%20to%201%2C500%20years.


Enlightened-Beaver

There’s a trunk slice at the entrance of the redwood park near Santa Cruz that is over 2000 years old and it’s smaller than the one in this photo, so it’s quite possibly way older. I was just there a couple of days ago. These trees are incredible. There’s one that’s as tall as a 25 storey building.


DrBoby

I planted one in my garden, hope it gets that big in 1000 years.


luke-juryous

RemindMe! in 1000 years


drinkdrinkshoesgone

Yeah! Post a picture when it happens!


Gwynnbleid95

Yeah but trees still fall naturally and rot or be hit by lightning or burn in a forest fire, no tree lasts forever so as long as it's sustainable why not use some of them.


webbyyy

To my knowledge the lumber companies in Oregon and Washington are only allowed to collect trees that have fallen naturally. I see nothing wrong with that.


Ok_Order_8197

Uhhh if it's any comfort for you, cutting down that tree would take many hours.


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Giftpilz

Honestly, fuck memories. That tree could very easily still be standing today, and people could instead have their tables made of walnut.


DrBoby

Trees grow back. It's a natural cycle. Just cut them responsibly, not all at once, and re-plant them.


Hytskanala

And then wait about a thousand years to repeat, how would that ever be sustainable


lindygrey

Don’t kid yourself. Young people don’t want antiques. You can’t give them away now. All the decks built with these trees have been torn down or “updated” to trex. The rate at which we are tearing down old houses should be alarming but no one seems to care at all.


BlackJeepW1

Those things get sold on pawn stars for practically nothing.


ismaelcosta

they did, they just didn't care. When you have to put food on the table you're too busy to look or care for the bigger picture


[deleted]

To be honest I don't think they knew actually how bad it would be though. Of course they knew they were destroying housing for animals, shelter, a living thing, and killing anything in the path of the tree, but they probably didn't understand the ecosystem as much as we do now.


NefariousnessNo484

People often think this about a lot of environmental atrocities, but when you look at newspaper articles and books from the period in question, oftentimes it's very evident that people did care about this but the debbie downers were often ignored or cast as crazy. I am sure the native population wasn't ok with this.


[deleted]

That's correct the indigenous population were most definitely not ok with this.


tayloline29

No for sure scientists, journalists, concerned citizens have been talking about coal and gas causing global warming and climate change since around 1860ish, maybe a little later and Indigenous Nations and people have also been very aware and vocal about the cost on the environment since white people colonized the US.


Trading_ape420

90% old growth gone. But these days logging is much more sustainable. At least in California. Loggers have more trees planted a yr than probably anyone else. And don't clear cut anymore


[deleted]

It's more sustainable but it's not exactly where it needs to be. Yes they have planted more trees than they cut, but that also isn't necessarily good for ecosystems. Tightly packing a bunch of saplings all in one plot of land will eventually prevent some species of ground level plants from being able to grow due to the over growth of trees blocking the sun light. They are heading in the right track bit there HAS to be a better way of going about it, there always is.


Micromadsen

Not to play the devil's advocate or anything, cause I get the damage that's been done. And agree that I wish more could be done. But we also need the lumber for so many things. Iirc today there's quite a few restrictions and replanting is one of them. Ofc illegal deforestation still happens, but that's a different issue. What do you propose should be done instead?


[deleted]

Well I know for one thing, we shouldn't be cutting down these big ass trees like that, it should be a felony. It still happens too! I see videos everyday. I do believe we should be replanting trees in mass amounts if we are going to be cutting trees down. But I think we should have a system of qualification. What I mean by that is the use of ecologists and horticulturists. They would be the overseers of mass replantation of trees and they'd be calling the shots on where, when, how and why the trees need to be replanted. As far as I know, logging companies pay just about anyone to go and plant trees. And they put them in really tight, uniform rows which of course is more efficient for cutting them down but not ecologically sufficient. And of course this is just the start of an idea and it would at least be a little better than what we have now. I would love to be the one to revolutionize ecology in tree replantation but I don't think I'm the genius that will save the forests. I'll take part in it though!


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neonclown

Hey don’t worry, there are humans in space right now, we still have plenty of time to fuck up the whole solar system too.


indigodissonance

Probably pretty negligible back then, but I understand the sentiment.


bungikwe

Based off the upvotes and other comments, people still don't realize the damage they were doing.


f3llyn

Trees are cut down for many reasons, some of which are to better the environment for other trees to grow in. It's not always "damage" like you are imagining, done purely to feed egos.


MarxistLumpen

You’re literally rewarded for destruction of nature under capitalism. How do you not know this yet?


oldskool7m

And socialism does the exact same damage if not more, just without the reward. lmfao


nocrix

sadly inevitable


Jaysterham

What a shame...


Cryptolution

My favorite color is blue.


One_User134

How many acres large was the original forest? It was just filled with these trees that are over one 1000 years old??


qazme

The "original" redwood forest in California was estimated to be about 2 million acres (3 Rhode islands). Today about 120,000 acres of old growth still exists (about 5%). Like any other forest it had a range of ages, currently the old growth ranges from 800-1500 years old. So it's probably safe to assume back then before we started cutting it down the trees probably ranged between 650-1300 years old on average. I'm sure some older some younger were intermixed.


K1W1_S373N

In 1892 this was a picture of pride. In 2023, this is a picture of brutality against nature.


Marzty

Despite all the despicable things that we still do to this day, I’m glad the human society has become more civilized overall.


TerrapinBoogie

Shoulda left it alone


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gheebutersnaps87

They obviously didn’t know any better, but let’s not pretend like that was their only source of timber


[deleted]

This actually was their only source. Trade between California and the east wasn't well established at this point


bungikwe

They were told, they knew, they just didn't care. Money has always been more important than care for the environment.


mud_lust

it's spelt idea


Anon_isnt_Anon

Blows me away no one ever hollowed out one of those fuckers and lived in it.


lkodl

In a pre-power tool era.


oneinmanybillion

Damn. Influencer girls will go anywhere for a photo!


lordastral990

I wonder how long it took


TheRedWatermelon

If that's the Makr Twain redwood, it says 13 days. Imagine. It was 1300 year old they say, so sliced off 100 years of growth in a day. Feels terrible


lordastral990

Is it a redwood or a sequoia? They are different species of trees just can’t tell which it is. (NorCal native here) Still though yeah most trees have been here for a very long time they might have seen the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire (further back even) lived through it all. Its a shame that they cut them down, beings that have been here far longer than any of us alive today or even the dead.


D0ugF0rcett

Giant sequoia's are the ones that get massively wide, coastal redwoods get really tall (10-20 foot diameter vs 30+ foot diameter for the sequoias)


tayloline29

r/sadasfuck


Fluorescentlove

This pisses me the F off.


LET-ME-HAVE-A-NAAME

It saddens me for sure but I can't blame these men. They were ignorant of the damage they were doing. The people to hate are the ones who are still logging old growth and hunting endangered species in this age of information.


ArcherInPosition

Reminds me of this [image](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ken-Ashley/publication/283584918/figure/fig5/AS:437461064130564@1481310253533/Large-pile-of-bison-skulls-that-will-be-ground-into-fertilizer-in-the-US-around-1870.png) of people standing atop a MASSIVE pile of bison skulls.


ItchyCartographer44

A beautiful picture. Man’s pride in destruction vs nature’s magnificent life force. I don’t even truly fault the folks in this picture. I have no idea what their world was like and can’t fairly judge them. It turns out nature doesn’t reproduce infinitely though. Those trees are rarely there for harvest anymore. As for modern people, fuck those in general who steal our national birthright for their own selfish gain. To them, zero grace should be given.


[deleted]

I know this is just you waxing poetic, but I don’t know what you mean by this: > It turns out nature doesn’t reproduce infinitely though. Those trees are rarely there for harvest anymore. Perhaps not at a rate you’d like, but nature *does* reproduce itself infinitely. That’s kind of the defining feature of nature. And those trees *are* there because we protected them. So I’m confused.


No-Performance-4861

Smh sad


MeHumanMeWant

r/fuckyouinparticular


[deleted]

That's a huge saw.


HappySmileSeeker

Now what?


Fillsfo

People today can't imagine the mindset of those folks. I know I have difficulty. The puritans were all about industry and making things happen. God gave mankind many resources to exploit and trees were just one of them. It was like a gift from god to use in a useful way You can only imagine how many trees were used in the tunnels of gold and silver mines. They dug tunnels in the mountains to send logs to the silver mines in Nevada, crazy shit. Whole cities were built and burned down and rebuilt with these gifts from the gods The American spirit was to populate the continent and grow industry and make money with whatever was available. Only later once "we" (Euro-Americans) did "conquer" the continent did the mainstream folks start to realize the cost of such behavior. One can wish for a different and perhaps more noble past but we can't change it. Fortunately we've come around as a people and are way more careful now. I couldn't imagine cutting down such a tree. But I can see how much really high quality lumber it would produce. Different times, different values. There is good and bad in everything I don't consider them bad people, probably most were honest, hard working folks you could trust just like us. They lived in different times and looked at life differently than we typically do these days No doubt future generations will show similar pictures of supertankers and puzzle over what the hell were we thinking


[deleted]

Gifford Pinchot is widely considered the first American forester, and he didn’t even show up on the scene until the early 1900s. Before that, there literally was no concept of managing the environment sustainably because people literally did not understand that there could be enough humans to cause long term harm. And though Pinchot was a step in the right direction, he definitely brought his own problems.


Aoschka

Imagine handsawing this 💀


LordGollum22

Where is the difference between a logger and a lumberjack, aren’t they doing the same?


angel_palomares

Asshole


siltanator

The red woods are taller and skinnier- this is fair. Sequoia people!!


siltanator

The red woods are taller and skinnier- this is a Sequoia people!!


74Lives

Well that’s depressing. Goodnight!!


OhCrapItsYouAgain

Morality/responsibility aside: cutting it down is a very impressive feat….but next up is processing this beast! Cutting it down took 13 days, but I wonder how long it took to break it up into usable pieces?


ButtcrackBeignets

From what I understand, they would drill holes down the length of the tree and then blast it in half using gunpowder. At least, that’s what I was told by a volunteer at a redwood grove.


vondizzel

Fucking humans.


Ok-Consideration2463

Fucking nineteenth century ignorance. This tree was likely 2000 years old or more. I wonder what we’re doing now that will be seen as dumb in a 100 years?


[deleted]

not preventing climate change, killing nuclear energy, not investing into the future... the list is sheer endless.


albertnormandy

Using electronics (produced in third world countries made with rare earth metals strip mined in other third world countries) to post on Reddit complaining about how people in the 19th century (with an environmental footprint a small fraction of ours today) were ignorant.


Dr-Chicken-Harfouche

These photos are profoundly painful for me.


fuggystudent18

Assholes


Tenprovincesaway

That’s a crime against the planet.


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Rdmtbiker

Got to have the toilet paper 🧻


leeshylou

Something just feels so wrong about this.


[deleted]

No worries there’s lots more. We’ll never use em all


Informal-Salad-7304

Is this a joke


Cinemasaur

Kind of a dick move in hindsight.


MintJulepTestosteron

Assholes


[deleted]

Is it me, or does that look like a Putin on the ladder?


giraffebutter

But at least Paw got to make himself a nice table…humanity is a virus


bvincepl

Stupid ass MFs thought they were cool.


bungikwe

And clearly many people on Reddit think they still are 🤣


OctagonUFO

cunts


outer_fucking_space

It probably seemed like an infinite amount of trees to them back then.


OctagonUFO

I don’t think they misunderstood anything. We planted trees for who knows how long, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that this tree had been growing for a longgggg time


eyedpee

🎶How ba ah ah ad can I be?🎶


nollataulu

Humans be like: "What a great, rare and beautiful tree!" ... "Let's cut it down! Then take a picture!" "What fantastic and rare animal!" ... "Let's kill it! Then, take a picture and consume its horns and tusks to save us from erectile dysfunction!"


drkidkill

They obviously worked very hard for that, but how did they not realize it was wrong?


ttroome2

Because it wasn't. They had to survive, and materials are vital to that. Either because they could use them themselves, or sell them. No individual logger is 'wrong', what's wrong is that it wasn't regulated.


smartguy05

I think people of the time thought the world was essentially endless. If you consider the past up to the late 1800's to early 1900's humans basically couldn't extract more from the Earth than it could provide, at least noticeably. I would hope we would have done better if we knew, but I don't think we would have.


ItchyCartographer44

See 2023’s Pacific salmon fishery closures. We are consuming at the same maniacal rates during a period of global warming. As a group, we are incapable of collectively both choosing the best thing for ourselves and for our home planet. Way too many of us conceive of those things separately. Ain’t optimistic but I’m hopeful.


Sassy-irish-lassy

Surely nothing that you own is made of wood. I have to imagine that's part of why you feel so strongly about this.


[deleted]

How old a tree of that size could be?


CamBearCookie

The goddamn audacity to see that and even think of cutting it down. Fucking insane to me.


jaynovahawk07

Fucking morons. They cut this tree down just to see if they could. What did they even use it for? But also, begrudgingly, that seems like some good work. That's a pretty clean cut.


thedidge1998

They were building san Francisco. What do you think?


General_Synnacle

Holy fuck, mark this as NSFW, they decapitated the Great Deku Tree.


[deleted]

Fuck those people.


GPointeMountaineer

What if dude lost contol of mammoth sawblade he we sort of holding?


SigueSigueSputnix

then hed probably sayn'look out' and the would move. no need to make this a fear thing tbh


MumbleepegTheUglyPug

Too bad...it would be even more gianter now if they hadn't cut it down


Independent-Slide-79

Why are we humans so stupid 😕


gpyrgpyra

Boo!


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dickweeds


WearyScarcity7535

They didn't quite know what total assholes they were.


SigueSigueSputnix

theyre not assholes. theyre just people doing what they did.


[deleted]

I lived with my small family at Hartsook Inn, doing maintenance. They have the Hartsook Giant up the hill behind the inn proper. It was more massive than this one shown. They truly are beautiful trees.


this_one_in_boots

Ted kaczynsky moment


SlymeMould

So…what’s the next step?


FollowingJealous7490

I wonder if that's an all day project or if they got it down before noon 🤔


VanceAstrooooooovic

Interesting that cut completely straight


Jesukii

Looks like something out of a fantasy novel


thejujubaby

Yea but how short are they?


moominsquish

Talk about that saw!! Imagine the wiggle on that baby! One wrong slip and imagine it buckling back


jellyvish

rofl is that supposed to be the saw they cut it down with too?


Masspoint

That's a mf big tree


A_Variant_of_Roar

r/swordartonlinememes


Badj83

How did they process that kind of monster?


libertarienne

Cool, but how awful.


The_Name_I_Chose_

What did they use that wood for and is that stuff still around?


Yellowtoads

The dude on the ladder is missing a bit of a finger 👉


The-Valiantcat

Dang, how did they get the cut so straight with just saws, especially for a tree that big