On a bushwhacking journey of three days into the nearly impenetrable reaches of Redwood National Park, Mark Katzman and environmentalist/adventure writer Tom Clynes set out to find - or try to find - the newly discovered Worlds Tallest Tree. The story, published in the current issue of Backpacker Magazine, is an attempt at discouraging people from hiking off-trail to find this tree. The distance from pavement to the area where the tree was found is not so great, but the task of getting there is extremely arduous. Our adventurers navigated through mazes of felled giants where trees become unconquerable walls and also, sometimes, bridges of passage. The impossibly thick undergrowth drove Mark, Tom and crew to hike up river - through the flow of water - because it was clear of vegetation. The exasperated end was as anticlimactic as they thought it might be.  After all, at the base of so many immensely tall trees, how can you tell which is the tallest?

Many more photos after the jump. 

Redwood National Park http://www.nps.gov/redw/ 

Backpacker Magazine http://www.backpacker.com/

Tom Clynes Bio http://members.authorsguild.net/tomclynes/bio.htm