Friday, November 12, 2010

Shrine Drive-Thru Tree, California

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.

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