Clothespin Tree

Nobody cut the hole in this tree. Fire did, over and over, until the trunk opened into a gap you can see from fifty yards off, and the sequoia went on living around it. One look and the name explains itself. How big the opening is depends on who you ask. Wikipedia gives it as about 21 metres tall and nearly 5 metres wide. Another description puts it nearer 12 metres tall, still wide enough to drive a car through. Both agree on what it is, a fire-carved archway through a living giant, and we have not been able to settle the numbers, so we give you both. That is the useful thing about this tree. Lower down in the same grove, the California Tunnel Tree shows what people did to a sequoia with saws in 1895. The Clothespin shows what fire does on its own, slowly, and how much of a trunk a sequoia can lose and still stand. It is a named stop on the Mariposa Grove Trail, on the way to the upper grove, near the Faithful Couple, so the two are best walked together. From the Arrival Area that is the longer walk, around eleven kilometres there and back. No source we checked gives the height or girth of the whole tree, and none gives an age. If you know either, tell us.