While prepping for my day at Tall Tree Trail, a family pulls up to the trailhead next to me and begins to prep for a hike. They have a lot of shit, and one of the girls has a canoe paddle strapped to her bag. Ok, I have to ask… “How y’all doing? Going for a hike?” The son, who looks to be my age, tells me he is searching for Hyperion, the tallest tree in the world. At 380 feet tall, it’s much taller than its closest neighbors that stand at 320 feet. He wants to find it. Well shit I wanna find it too! I grab the GPS coordinates from him, and read the written description on how to reach the tree. It is not on any trail. Smart. Why would you want people flocking to such a magnificent being? To get there, they’ll have to cross a large stream, then wade up a smaller stream 0.3 miles. The son, who is named Dat, is super kind and genuine. I instantly like him and his crazy adventure. (More info here http://famousredwoods.com/hyperion/)
The family goes on ahead before me as I still need to finish prepping some things. The longer I wait and the more I think about this tree, the more dedicated I am to finding it. About 20 minutes after the family heads out, I follow suit. I try to catch up with them, hoping I can just tag along and follow the crowd to find Hyperion. When I get to the first large stream, I find them changing clothes. Ok I didn’t mention this before, but the family is Asian. Mom and Dad are probably in their late 50s, Dat is around my age, a younger sister (Trinh) is there and a cousin. All live in Seattle. As I catch up, I ask if I can join their search party. Dat quickly says yes, and the mom says “welcome to our group!” I’m very excited. First I’m excited to find this tree, but then I become waaaay more excited about watching this mom and dad try to cross a swift moving stream. Dad has fashioned a backpack out of a white kitchen trash bag. He has 3 changes of clothes. I find this very amusing. Dat has brought an inflatable raft in case his parents can’t get across on foot. He is very determined to get the entire clan to the tree. This is also hilarious to me. The stream was knee to waist deep, but moving fairly quick. I desperately want to see Dat usher his parents across in an inflatable raft in 3 feet of water…
Once across, we begin up the smaller stream to Hyperion. There are lots of downed logs, jagged rocks, and cold ass water. My feet are completely numb in minutes. About 0.1 miles in, we find what we think is a trail. Dat leads the way, using the canoe paddle as a makeshift machete. This is also amazingly hilarious, as this is a plastic, yellow paddle that a child would use. Seeing it used as semi-weapon is making me giggle uncontrollably.
The trail leads to nothing. Dead ends in incredibly think woods. We turn around and end up back at the water. Mom and Dad finally decide they are not cut out for this, and sit down on a picturesque gravel bar to wait for us to find Hyperion. Dat translates some of what his father is saying, “he says he hasn’t done this since he was a child, he loves it!” As Dat, sister, cousin and I push on, we are greeted with more downed logs, fast cool water and steep banks. It is utterly beautiful. I try and take pictures, but they do this landscape no justice.
Dat and I both have the GPS point, and as we inch towards it we see a trail leading uphill. This looks promising. As we leave the water, we are faced with 8 of the largest trees I have ever seen! Monsters really, looming over us and around us. How the hell are we supposed to know which one is Hyperion?? The tops are so high you can’t even see them! Dat has prepared for this moment, he has photos of the tree from all cardinal directions. As we gaze at each tree, trying to match up the photos, we find the one we believe is Hyperion. Definitely a monster of a tree. But how can we be sure?? I say we look for other human impacts. Us humans can’t do anything without leaving trash or carving a name somewhere. As we search, cousin finds $0.12 on the ground near the tree. Good start! I find a name carved in an adjacent log. CODY. Well Cody, I hate that you had to carve your stupid name in a downed log, but it’s actually helpful at this moment. With all of this evidence, plus matching photos of a fire scar, we decide this is Hyperion. We snap a few photos, then head back to pick up mom and dad. The family has a 10 hr drive to Seattle today. That sounds utterly awful.
When we reach mom and dad, they have done an outfit change, and mom has collected about 15 pounds of rocks. She shows them to me. They are beautiful, but look heavy as shit. She puts them all in dad’s trash bag backpack. As we walk towards the large stream, I beg Dat to blow up the inflatable boat for his parents. Think of the photos!! He agrees, and talks to his parents. They say no, that the stream was not that high. Dammit!
As we get to the stream, the family crosses, then spends another 15 minutes conducting a third costume change. I wave them goodbye, and wish them safe travels. The rest of the day was spent wandering around the redwoods in beautiful weather, and picturesque scenery. Four total stream crossings has left my feet cold and wet, but it was all totally worth it . The next morning I got to my car only to see a handwritten note with all the cool places to visit in Seattle, plus their phone numbers in case I have any questions. Hands down, some of the nicest people I’ve met this entire trip.
Note pt. 2 
Seattle tips
Today I’m off to the beach! Hoping to see whales this time!!