Trip Report

On the July 4th weekend we went back to Mountain Home Grove to do some more measuring. The previous weekend I’d managed to get a look at all of the well-known trees I am aware of, but I only had time to get a single profile measurement on the three big ones that had lost volume. So I wanted to get another look at the those and measure on a profile 90 degrees from the original angle.

In the largest trees, that level of thoroughness is warranted to get a more accurate handle on the tree’s shape. If it is more elliptical than circular, you will get a much more precise number on the tree’s volume with two measurement profiles from different directions.

And Three-Fingered Jack is very elliptical! If you look at him from the east, he looks like 32,000 cu.ft. of piled-up wood; if you look at him from the north, he’s more like a 25,000-cu.ft. stand.

Here are the new measurements on the biggest trees I know of in Mountain Home that survived the Castle Fire, listed in order of trunk volume:

Tree Name    Height    Ground    DBH   Trunk Vol.
(ft) Perim.(ft) (ft)    (cu.ft.)

Euclid*                 272.7    83.4    20.3      36,122
Adam*                  247.4    94.2    23.0      35,017
Genesis                 214.0      85.5        21.9      34,598
Methuselah*        215.0    95.8    24.0      32,897
Summit Road       218.5      82.2        20.6      31,762
Allen Russell*      254.1    80.2    21.7      31,606
Mountain Home
     Monarch          270.5     99.0        24.0      30,973
Balch Park
   Ridgetop    229.5 77.5    18.9 30,584
Dogwood Meadow
   Leaner**    282.0 82.8    22.7   30,357
Drive-By
     Lace Meadow 201.0 79.8    21.6     28,951
West of Oliver
      Twist                243.5    89.5        20.2     28,945
Three-
     Fingered Jack 196.0    82.5    18.6 28,467
Off Summit Rd
     South of
     Summit Tree    248.0      77.7       17.8     26,322
Large North of
     Old Jobe           291.5      77.5       20.6     25,373
Old Jobe        184.5     76.3       21.2     23,194

Tree height measured from high ground to uppermost branch or foliage.
DBH measured 4-1/2 feet above high ground.

*Wendell Flint’s measurements. These trees showed negligible Castle Fire damage, so were not remeasured.
** May need to be remeasured, as the ground level went down, exposing more tree base.

There’s going to be a reshuffling of the Largest Trees List, I’m afraid. For example, the Euclid Tree is now the new largest tree in the grove. Stand by for an updated list in the next few months.

Our thanks to the management of Mountain Home for granting us special permission to get into the grove to collect this data.

Before and after pictures of the worst-damaged trees on the largest lists are shown below:

Genesis Tree