#128 Ghost, Packsaddle Grove
The Ghost Tree is 30 feet in diameter at the ground, 20.5 feet in diameter at chest height, and the recent windy fire has taken it down to 130 feet from its past 180 feet tall. It has a huge base, however, the bole ends at 135 feet, where it has been cut short by lightning and fire; in the future small new leaders extend up from there we hope. If it were complete, it would be a mammoth tree.
Like the nearby Packsaddle Giant and Candelabra Trees, Ghost is not on a trail of any sort; it is, however, an easy walk from the nearest rough dirt road. The Ghost Tree was initially discovered by two separate groups in 1885 and then rediscovered by several individuals who all exaggerated its size. When Flint located it in 1950, he reported more realistic diameters. He measured it for volume several times between 1977 and 1986 to get its true size.
The Ghost Tree is 30 feet in diameter at the ground, 20.5 feet in diameter at chest height, and the recent windy fire has taken it down to 130 feet from its past 180 feet tall. It has a huge base, however, the bole ends at 135 feet, where it has been cut short by lightning and fire; in the future small new leaders extend up from there we hope. If it were complete, it would be a mammoth tree.
Like the nearby Packsaddle Giant and Candelabra Trees, Ghost is not on a trail of any sort; it is, however, an easy walk from the nearest rough dirt road. The Ghost Tree was initially discovered by two separate groups in 1885 and then rediscovered by several individuals who all exaggerated its size. When Flint located it in 1950, he reported more realistic diameters. He measured it for volume several times between 1977 and 1986 to get its true size.
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It was damaged in the Windy Fire, and it looks like the high side of the tree suffered some heat burn, but when I went back to visit it in the years since that fire, the tree still had quite a bit of greenery, mostly from the lower (east) side.
Below are pics from 2024:
