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Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm

22:10, Tuesday, 10 January, 2017
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
     A famed giant sequoia hollowed out so cars could drive through its trunk has met its end — toppled by the rains that lashed California over the weekend.

"The Pioneer Cabin tree has fallen!" the Calaveras Big Trees Association said on Facebook. "This iconic and still living tree — the tunnel tree — enchanted many visitors. The storm was just too much for it."

The tree's exact age and height were not immediately available, but sequoias can measure their ages in millennia and grow taller than 100 yards, or more than the length of a football field. They are the tallest trees in the world, according to Mario D. Vaden, a tree expert who has worked with the Save the Redwoods League in California.

Photos show the sequoia splintered on impact. If the question is whether a tree falling in the forest makes a noise, this one probably did.

The Pioneer Cabin Tree was in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, 100 miles southeast of Sacramento. Its trunk was hollowed out in the 1880s to compete with similar trees in Yosemite National Park, perhaps 50 miles further to the southeast, as the crow flies.

At first, only hikers passed through the Pioneer Cabin Tree. Then cars, once they were invented, were allowed. But more recently, passage was again limited to pedestrians only.

Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
Pioneer Cabin Tree, Famous for Tunnel, Is Toppled by Storm
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