Note 8/6/22: "Mother" has taken a hit, but appears to have survived and it doing its redwood thing -- growing back what it lost in the fire! Park is now open on a "resevation" basis and Mother is once again accessible. The logging requirement has been tweaked to allow for loss of the sign. Hopefully it will return soon.
The oldbadger reputation was built on Tiny caches, so this one also had to be a “Tiny” cache. One could argue that a 293 foot-high tree is hardly “tiny,” but it is actually rather short compared to the tallest currently identified Coast Redwood, the Hyperion tree located in Redwood National Park, last measured at 380.3 feet.
Prior to losing its top, the Mother of the Forest was reported to be 329 feet tall, about one foot taller than the currently recognized champ of the Big Basin Park (and apparently the Santa Cruz Mountains), an unnamed, unmarked tree somewhere along the Meteor Trail.
Interestingly, even at its original height of 329 feet, the Mother of the Forest would not even have made the top 200 list of tall redwoods. That requires a height of close to 350 feet. It would, however, have slightly edged out the tallest mountain ash, a eucalyptus giant in Tasmania (a touch over 327 feet), the tallest currently known coast Douglas-fir (327 feet) and its tallest giant sequoia cousin (about 314 feet).
It is also interesting to note that while the coast redwood is recognized as the clear leader as the tallest trees in the world, historical information indicates there may once have been some coast Douglas-fir trees that were taller than the coast redwoods.
To log this cache, you must visit the site, take a photo and post the photo with your log. The photo must include the sign by the tree with one of the following visible in the photo (Note 8/6/22: At least until the sign returns, include the big hollow at the base of the tree in your photo):
1) Your GPS unit, with or without you in the photo, or
2) Something showing your geocaching name (name tag, note paper, or whatever.)
Note: The cache has a terrain rating of 1.5, but the access from parking is on a pretty flat firm dirt path, so it is likely suitable for most wheelchairs as well.
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.