Public Domain Photo: A tunnel in the Pioneer Cabin Tree cut in the 1880s, photo by John J. O'Brien, 28 August, 2005.
A large tunnel was cut through the Pioneer Cabin Tree located in the Calaveras Big Trees State Park, located 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Arnold, California, in the 1880s in order to compete with the Wawona Tunnel Tree in Mariposa Grove in the Yosemite National Park.
Public Domain Photo: The Wawona Tunnel Tree, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Valley, California.
Public Domain Photo: The Wawona Tunnel Tree, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Valley, California, photo by C. Cameron Macauley taken on June 1, 1946.
Public Domain Photo: The Wawona Tunnel Tree, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Valley, California, Library of Congress photo, 1918 June 15.
The 2300-years-old Wawona Tree (or Wawona Tunnel Tree), was a famous Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum, also known as Sierra redwood, or Wellingtonia) that stood in Mariposa Grove in the Yosemite National Park, California. It had a height of 227 feet (69 meters) and was 90 feet (27 meters) in circumference.
In 1881a tunnel was cut through the Giant Sequoia through a scar caused by wildfire, at a cost of $75 paid to two workers. The Wawona Tree had a slight lean which aggravated on tunneling. However, with its new status as the Wawona Tunnel Tree, it became a very popular tourist attraction, as thousands of tourists came to have their photos taken driving through it or standing beneath it. It was photographed accommodating everything from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles, before the Wawona Tunnel Tree fell in 1969 because of an estimated two-ton load of snow on its crown.
Public Domain Photo: Discovery Tree stump and part of the fallen tree, photo by John J. O'Brien, 28 August 2005.
The Discovery Tree stump is located in the popular North Grove of the Calaveras Big Trees State Park. The Discovery Tree, a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), was first noted by Augustus T. Dowd in 1852 and felled in 1853, leaving only a giant stump which is the only remainder of the tree. The tree measured 24 feet (7.3 meters) in diameter at its base and was 1,244 years old when felled.
Calaveras Big Trees State Park with an area of about 26 square kilometers (6,400 acres) and a major tourist attraction since 1852, when the existence of the Giant Sequoias trees was first widely reported, is located 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Arnold, California, in the middle altitudes of the Sierra Nevada in Calaveras County. It became a state park in 1931 and it is considered the longest continuously operated tourist facility in California.
Public Domain Photo: A Giant Sequoia tree found near the Sequoia National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Visalia, California, USA.
Sequoiadendron giganteum (generally known as giant sequoia, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, or Wellingtonia) is the sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as redwoods. The other two are Sequoia sempervirens (Coast Redwood) and Metasequoia glyptostroboides (Dawn Redwood). When only referred to as ‘sequoia’, it means Sequoiadendron giganteum, which grow naturally only in the groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, United States.
Public Domain Photos: Tunnel Log, Crescent Meadow Road, Sequoia National Park in California
The Tunnel Log is a tunnel cut through a fallen giant sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park in California so that visitors can drive their cars through it. The tunnel is 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall and 17 feet (5.2 meters) wide. In December 1937, a sequoia tree, 275 feet (83.8 meters) tall and 21 feet (6.4 meters) in diameter, fell across the Crescent Meadow Road due to natural causes. In the following summer, a Civilian Conservation Corps crew cut a tunnel through the tree.
Public Domain Photo: The Shrine Drive-Thru Tree, a tree that visitors can drive through in a car, located at Myers Flat, Humboldt County, located on the far North Coast 200 miles north of San Francisco, photo taken on September 2, 2007.
The Shrine Drive-Thru Tree offers passage through a tunnel carved into a naturally angled opening in the trunk. The sign displayed at the site about the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree reads: “SHRINE DRIVE-THRU TREE, Age: 5000 years, Height: 275 feet, Diameter: 21 feet, Circumference: 64 feet, Myers Flat, California”. This tree tunnel is about 7 feet in diameter and 83 meters high.
Three other legendary drive-though tree tourist attractions stand near 101 Highway: Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree, the Tour-Thru Tree (at the northern end of the Redwood Country near Klamath), the Step-Thru Stump and the Drive-On Tree (a fallen giant with a partially paved ramp up).
The age of the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree, shown as 5,000 years old, is an exaggeration, because, top five of the verified oldest measured nonclone trees are:
1. Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, (known as Methuselah), Pinus longaeva - 4,844 years
2. Alerce, Fitzroya cupressoides - 3,622 years
3. Giant Sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum - 3,266 years
4. Sugi, Cryptomeria japonica - 3,000 years
5. Huon-pine, Lagarostrobos franklinii - 2,500 years
Also, view the YouTube video (below) of a car passing through the tree tunnel and also showing the hollow inner pith of the tree.
Photo: Tunnel Tree on the Crescent Meadow Road, a photo taken on July 17, 1940 by George A Grant, from National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection.
The Tunnel Log is a tunnel cut through a fallen giant sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park, in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Visalia, California, in the United States of America. The tree, which measured 275 feet (84 m) tall and 21 feet (6.4 m) in diameter, fell across a park road in 1937 due to some natural causes. The next year, a crew cut out an 8-foot (2.4 m) tall, 17-foot (5.2 m) wide tunnel through the trunk of the sequoia to make the road passable.
Photo 2: Tunnel Log in American Grand Forest, photo by Martin Leupold, taken in July 2005 and released as Public Domain Photo.
