Today I had the whole afternoon and a focused goal to put my new-to-me 50′ tape measure to use by measuring as many of my favourite old growth Douglas Firs as I could manage with the time and energy I had available. The biggest of which would be the Temple Giant I had only recently been able to see with my own eyes, though I’d read about for a while. I really wanted to compare it to the nearby Douglas fir that Tay and I found in March while looking for the grove. And, while I’m at it, measure up some other favourite firs that weren’t too far away. I wasn’t able to get to all the ones that came to mind, such as the Picadilly pair at the bottom of this post, but will be bringing my tape measure to them in due time. There’s also the Hollyburn Fir, which is also in the largest size class at around 3m diameter, but it has its own sign so hardly a need to measure.
I should also note, it was a good cloud day:
I needed to get to the Hydraulic creek area so I took Fisherman’s trail up to mid valley. Warm and sunny, a perfect May day. I took the Evasion, as while it’s not light, it’s a little lighter than my Bombadil – and I planned to do some carrying today.
Since I now knew the route up to the Temple Giant, and it was a moderately easy 15 minute hike, I figured it would be worth the effort to carry my bike up there “for scale” and because I’ve made a bit of a habit of taking my bike to trees that require substantial hike-a-bike. The first portion of the approach is quite easy, not too steep:
But my memory of the second half of the approach was decidedly more tame than reality, which is in fact quite steep:
It was quite a sweaty slog for the last section, with me tripping over my bike or myself many times, but I made it and got the photo:
As mentioned, I bought a tape measure for the express purpose of measuring trees – my next phase of burgeoning naturalist, I guess. My measurement is approximate as I couldn’t get the tape to be very level around the tree, but I measured 9.19m circumference, which works out to 2.92m diameter for the Temple Giant.
I climbed back down with the bike, rode 200m down the Seymour parkway, then stashed it in the bushes to hike up to the south fir without a bike. This tree is at about the same elevation but without the luxury of a trail (however subtle). Lots of sinking into hollow ground, pushing through saplings, and climbing over fallen trees – though the terrain wasn’t too steep up to this tree.
It measured 7.42m circumference or 2.36m diameter, a bit smaller than the Temple giant, though certainly has a presence about it as well.
Here it is viewed from a little further away (with sunscreen filter effect on the lens…), and “the chair” which can be found along the way. While there’s no trail to this tree, I know it’s known to others to some extent, as there is flagging in the area which leads up to it.
And for size context I wanted to also measure this Doug Fir that’s right along the paved parkway. It’s the biggest tree along the path that I’ve noticed, at least. 6.4m circumference, or 2m diameter. Not too far off, considering the lack of hike effort required!
I had noticed this Doug fir was pretty big along a small trail that connects down from Lillooet Rd to Inter River park so gave it a measure as well. A paltry 5.36m circumference or 1.7m diameter. Still, not too bad.
That was it for today’s trees, but I will go measure those West Van examples this coming weekend hopefully.
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