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The story behind The Boy Scout Tree, a 2,000-plus-year-old redwood

Thousands of years ago, in an area nearly 300 miles north of what would even­tually become San Fran­cisco, two saplings simul­tane­ously sprung up from the damp ground. Instead of fighting each other for resources like water, light and food from the soil, the saplings seemingly decided there were enough nutri­ents to share. So, the two tiny trees grew together, side by side. Over the years, they became fused together to become one tree, becoming even stronger in the process. This tree is more than 238 feet tall and more than 23 feet wide at its base. It’s considered a double-trunk redwood, since it’s basi­cally two trunks fused into one. If your arm span was 90 feet, you could lit­er­ally give this tree a hug. It lives in Jedediah Smith Red­woods State Park near Crescent City, Cali­fornia, a park that was estab­lished in 1929 to preserve red­woods just like this one.