Colonel Armstrong

This redwood is named after a lumberman, which sounds like an insult and is not. Colonel James B. Armstrong made his money cutting Sonoma County forest in the 1870s and 1880s and then set this stand aside rather than felling it, which is why about 1,400 years of tree is still standing half a mile up the trail from the entrance. It is the oldest named tree in the reserve and around 300 feet tall. Estimates run from roughly 1,200 to 1,600 years, so even at the cautious end it was two centuries old at the time of the Norman conquest. In August 2020 the Walbridge Fire reached this grove and crews worked to hold it. The reserve burned at its edges and the old trees came through, which is less luck than bark: a coast redwood carries a foot of it, low in resin and hard to light. Armstrong died in 1900 and the tree has put on another century since. Getting to it is easy in a way the size does not prepare you for. State Parks charges about ten dollars per vehicle for the day, the trail is flat, and it is a fifteen-minute stroll from the car park. It is evergreen and looks the same in February as in August, so the only thing worth timing is the crowd.