YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK – The world’s largest pine tree has been discovered in Yosemite National Park. The tree is now dubbed the “Mossy Creek Giant.”
The tree was actually first found back in 1981 by forester, Michael Taylor, when he took a trip to the California park with his high school. He wandered off into the woods and stumbled across the spectacular tree.
“There was something about the sugar pine that just enthralled me,” Taylor told The Sugar Pine Foundation. “I just love the tree, for some reason.”
Taylor returned in the of summer 2024 with two other researchers to take a closer look and to confirm his youthful instinct that this tree was indeed special. They measured the diameter of the tree at its base and up at its crown. At 236 feet tall, it’s not the tallest pine tree, but it is the biggest by volume, at 5,761 cubic feet. The tree is estimated to be 450-500 years old.
Taylor has a knack for finding big old trees. He was one of the people who helped find the world’s tallest tree, Hyperion, and the largest redwood, which is called the Lost Monarch.
