What to See in Redwood National Park - Top Sights and Attractions

Hyperion is a coast redwood in California considered the world's tallest known living tree.

Hyperion was discovered August 25, 2006, by naturalists Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor. The tree was verified as standing 115.55 m (379.1 ft) tall by Stephen Sillett. It was found in a remote area of Redwood National Park purchased in 1978. It is estimated to contain 530 m3 (18,600 cu ft) of wood. The park also houses the second and third known tallest trees, named Helios and Icarus. Sillett estimates Hyperion to be 600 years old while others report it to be roughly 700–800 years old.

The exact location of Hyperion is kept secret to protect the tree from damage.

Researchers have said that woodpecker activity at the top may have prevented the tree from growing taller.

In February 2012, Hyperion was featured in the BBC Radio 4 documentary James and the Giant Redwoods by James Aldred.^[2]

National park in California. The Redwood National and State Parks are a complex of one national park and three state parks, cooperatively managed, located in the United States along the coast of northern California. Comprising Redwood National Park and California's State Parks: Del Norte Coast, Jedediah Smith, and Prairie Creek, the combined RNSP contain 139,000 acres, and feature old-growth temperate rainforests. Located within Del Norte and Humboldt Counties, the four parks, together, protect 45 percent of all remaining coast redwood old-growth forests, totaling at least 38,982 acres. These trees are the tallest, among the oldest, and one of the most massive tree species on Earth. In addition to the redwood forests, the parks preserve other indigenous flora, fauna, grassland prairie, cultural resources, portions of rivers and other streams, and 37 miles of pristine coastline.

In 1850, old-growth redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres (8,100 km2) of the California coast. The northern portion of that area was originally inhabited by Native Americans that were forced out off their land by gold seekers and timber harvesters. The enormous redwoods attracted timber harvesters to support the gold rush in more southern regions of California and the increased population from booming development in San Francisco and other places on the West Coast. After many decades of unrestricted clear-cut logging, serious efforts toward conservation began. By the 1920s the work of the Save the Redwoods League, founded in 1918 to preserve remaining old-growth redwoods, resulted in the establishment of Prairie Creek, Del Norte Coast, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks among others. Redwood National Park was created in 1968, by which time nearly 90 percent of the original redwood trees had been logged. The National Park Service (NPS) and the California Department of Parks and Recreation (CDPR) administratively combined Redwood National Park with the three abutting Redwood State Parks in 1994 for the purpose of cooperative forest management and stabilization of forests and watersheds as a single unit.

The ecosystem of the RNSP preserves a number of threatened animal species such as the tidewater goby, Chinook salmon, northern spotted owl, and Steller's sea lion, though it is believed that the tidewater goby is likely to have been extirpated from the park. In recognition of the rare ecosystem and cultural history found in the parks, the United Nations designated them a World Heritage Site on September 5, 1980 and part of the California Coast Ranges International Biosphere Reserve on June 30, 1983.^[4]