The Immortal Tree near Redcrest — a survivor of logging, fire, flood, and a lightning strike that took off its top.
Near Redcrest, watch for the Immortal Tree, and it has earned that name about four times over. This one tree survived a logging crew — you can still see the axe cuts where they started on it and, for whatever reason, gave up. It survived the great flood of nineteen sixty-four, standing in water up the trunk. It survived fire. And it survived a lightning strike that blew perhaps forty-five feet clean off its top, which is why its crown looks blunt and battered against the sky. It's around a thousand years old and it is still growing. There's a small pull-out and a marker. I like this tree more than the record-holders, honestly — it isn't the tallest or the biggest, it's just the one that refused to go down, and there's a lot to be said for that.