Genevieve Villemaire is a natural leader and wears many hats in our community – including a brand new Sugar Pine Foundation cap! In addition to working full time at the US Forest Service and being a dedicated mother and outdoorswoman, Genevieve co-leads the local Cub Scout Pack 592. This spring, Genevieve and her pack came …
Spotlight on Genevieve Villemaire: Volunteer Extraordinaire Read More »
Saturday, March 19th was rainy, gray, muddy and wet, wet, wet but the conditions did not stop over 50 volunteers from planting 900 ponderosa pine seedlings in the Caldor Fire scar along Mormon Emigrant Road! The planting was organized in partnership with the El Dorado National Forest’s Placerville Ranger District, who had already cleared and prepped …
Michael Taylor and Steve Sillett measured the world’s second tallest known Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in Redwood National and State Parks this past Saturday, March 26, 2022. The tree stands 99.3 m tall (325.8 ft) – only 0.2 m (almost 8 inches!) shy of the reigning champion that the duo discovered just this past July 2021 in a …
JUST DISCOVERED: New #2 Tallest Douglas-fir in the World! Read More »
by Tressa Gibbard When you are invited to join world famous tree hunter Michael Taylor on a tall tree expedition, you do not decline. Even if you do not know what you are in for, you accept the invitation and learn what you will be doing along the way. Such was the case when I …
Finding the Elusive 100m Non-Redwood With Michael Taylor and Steve Sillett Read More »
The Sugar Pine Foundation is friends with two of the leading discoverers of the world’s tallest trees: Michael Taylor and Dr. Steve Sillett. For 30 years, Taylor and Sillett have slogged through dense, punishing underbrush and up and down vertiginous ravines in search of the tallest trees on Earth. Their pursuits are the subject of …
Michael Taylor & Steve Sillett Discover World’s 10 Tallest Douglas-firs Read More »
Have you been wondering why California – and the American West – has been experiencing noticeably more and larger wildfires in your own lifetime? The Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation (TTCF) recently hosted a Forest Futures Salon titled “Wildfire 101.” It featured Dr. Brandon Collins of UC Berkeley expounding on the factors that have led to a growing number of …
Have you ever heard a strangely loud bee buzzing incessantly nearby only to second-guess your initial reaction to the sound as you realize, “No, that can’t be a bee. It’s somewhat noisier, whiny and robotic – oh, it must be one of those darned new-fangled drone things up in the sky?!” Yes, they’re a little …
Here in Tahoe, it seems like winter is finally here! While we turn on our heaters and layer up in jackets and blankets, trees must make changes to make it through winter’s cold temperatures, too! They have several ways to adapt to and survive the freezing cold. Trees go dormantDormancy is the plant kingdom’s version …
California is home to some incredibly impressive trees: oldest, tallest, and largest! If you’re obsessed with finding big trees, California is a good place to look. For over 30 years, Michael Taylor – a professional big tree hunter, a fan of sugar pines, and a long-time friend of the Sugar Pine Foundation – has been searching …
Record Sugar Pines Discovered in the Sierra Nevada Read More »
Dr. Joan Dudney, our Science Advisor, has recently published a new paper entitled “Compounding effects of white pine blister rust, mountain pine beetle, and fire threaten four white pine species.” Joan and her co-authors studied long-term mortality trends of four white pine species in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI). In SEKI, just as …
New Study on Mortality Trends in Southern Sierra Nevada Sugar Pine and other White Pines Read More »