I read The Golden Spruce (author, John Vaillant) in Alaska during the summer of 2006 and loved the book. It is the story of one giant golden spruce, an albino, a world natural wonder, until Grant Hadwin took a chainsaw to it in 1997 and the fascinating, troubling context in which his act took place.
So when I read that one can see albino redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants it was a given that we had to find one.
They are very rare and this forest only has a handful of albino trees.
An 'albino' redwood is a redwood tree which is unable to produce chlorophyll, and so has waxy, white needles instead of the normal green.
They survive by tapping into a host tree.
A lead from the visitor centre and lots of back and forth on the road we eventually found the 30' tree, my first ever albino tree.
Just amazing, I can see why they are called ghost trees, it gleamed in the forest. Mesmerizing.
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| It's 'normal' neighbor |
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| Albino Redwood and its huge host looming over it. |
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| Ghost tree |
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| Completely taken with this tree |
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