The hook
An 1,800-year-old redwood stands right at the edge of Skyline Boulevard, the biggest and oldest tree in these mountains outside Big Basin, left alone because it was too gnarled to cut.
01Why it's worth it
Methuselah sprouted around 217 AD, which makes it older than the fall of Rome and, at more than 1,800 years, the oldest and largest living tree in the Santa Cruz Mountains outside Big Basin. It's over 14 feet across at the base and 147 feet tall, and that's only half of what it was: a storm broke the top off in 1957. When loggers cleared nearly all the old growth up here in the 1800s, they passed over Methuselah because its trunk is so knotted with burls that milling it wasn't worth the effort, and that is the whole reason it's still standing. It sits at the edge of the pavement, easy to blow past at speed, which most people do. A small marker names it.
02How to experience it
The tree is on the east side of Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35), about half a mile south of the Skeggs Point vista and a few miles north of Alice's Restaurant. There's a small pullout and that's it: pull over, walk up, look up. From Kings Mountain Road it's a short jog north on Skyline, worth the detour if you've never stood under something that was already ancient when the missions were built.