To me, this is really sad. Between the ages of about 9 and 12 I spent summers traveling around the US with my grandparents, mostly to national parks, and these dark, mysterious forests are one of the strongest memories I have. The Sequoia forests in California are about the most beautiful places in the world. In my fantasy world, I'd either live in one of those Sequoia forests, on one of the windy, rocky shores of Oregon, or someplace in the southern Canadian Rockies. I urge anybody to visit these forests that has an opportunity to do so.
It was the second "biggest" tree, not second "oldest". To get a perspective look at the lady standing on the right at the base of the Washington Tree.
Mexico still has this: http://www.delange.org/Tule/Tule.htm (with kids around it: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/julian/tulepix.html)
Someone actually cut down the oldest living tree on earth to find out its exact age. Great Basin National Park
"Second oldest tree in the world about to die" for a title and not a single Tree Rollins joke yet... wow.
