Ranger Tales
The Immortal Tree, a massive coast redwood with a marker sign, beside the Avenue of the Giants near Redcrest.
Avenue of the Giants · Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Northern California

The Immortal Tree

⏱ 10–15 min🥾 Easy, roadside pull-out📏 Near Redcrest, on the Avenue⭐ A quick stop with a great story🐾 Dog-friendly

Near Redcrest, a small pull-out and marker mark the Immortal Tree, and it earned the name several times over. Loggers started cutting it and gave up, and you can still see the axe marks. It stood through the great flood of 1964. It survived fire. And a lightning strike blew the top clean off, which is why its crown looks blunt against the sky.

It isn’t the tallest or the biggest tree on the Avenue, but it’s around a thousand years old, it’s still growing, and it may be the most beloved.

Redwoods are built to survive almost everything: bark up to a foot thick with almost no resin to burn, the ability to grow new roots up into flood silt, and stumps that sprout rings of clones. The Immortal Tree is a roadside lesson in all of it.

Good to know
  • • Small pull-out with a marker; it’s an easy, quick stop.
  • • Pull fully off the road. The Avenue has almost no shoulder.
Quick answers
Why is it called the Immortal Tree?
The Immortal Tree near Redcrest has survived logging (its axe marks are still visible), the 1964 flood, fire and a lightning strike that took off its top. It is roughly a thousand years old and still growing.
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Keep exploring Avenue of the Giants

Other spots in the park

A quiet trail winding between tall coast redwoods and ferns in Founders Grove, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
Founders Grove
Old-growth coast redwoods in Founders Grove, where the fallen Dyerville Giant lies.
The Dyerville Giant
Looking up the trunk of a towering coast redwood in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
Rockefeller Forest & Bull Creek Flats
Redwood sorrel and a small pink flower on the forest floor of the redwoods.
Humboldt Redwoods Visitor Center
The entrance sign for the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree in Myers Flat on the Avenue of the Giants.
Shrine Drive-Thru Tree
🎧 Get the tour

Hear The Immortal Tree’s story on the trail

Ranger Tales’ self-guided audio tour drives the Avenue with you: Ranger Quinn calls out the groves, the pull-outs and the road, and Ranger Boone tells the stories, from the night the Dyerville Giant fell to the Christmas flood that swallowed Weott and the people who bought these trees out from under the saws. It plays by GPS from either end, works fully offline, and pauses when you park. Get it before you leave the freeway.

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