CALIFORNIA Hunters seek biggest trees

They hope to find the biggest sequoia in the world.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. -- Mike Law barges through punishing underbrush, angling for a closer look.
"Oh, my God, this thing is enormous. Look at that trunk," he says. "I don't know if it's the one, but it'll definitely make our list."
Law is on the hunt for an elusive quarry: the world's biggest tree.
He is one of a rare breed who has spent decades searching trackless corners of the Sierra Nevada, hunting a monolith that would surpass the giant of the giant sequoias, the General Sherman. The longtime title holder stands neatly fenced off in nearby Sequoia National Park, with a paved road to its doorstep delivering a steady stream of gawking tourists.
Biggest in volume
At 274.9 feet, the Sherman is not the tallest tree on the planet. That honor belongs to a leggy 367-foot coastal redwood near Ukiah, Calif., named the Mendocino. But the Sherman is the world's biggest in volume.
Weighing 2.7 million pounds, it last measured 52,508 cubic feet -- that's counting all the wood -- and is still growing. It has reigned supreme since surveyors settled a fierce rivalry between Fresno and Tulare counties in the 1920s over exactly whose big tree was the biggest. Tulare won.
Ever since, rumors have abounded of a giant larger than the Sherman, like a landlocked Moby Dick lurking in a sea of green.
Summer after summer, hunters doggedly tackle remote corners of the 70-odd groves of giant sequoias that dot the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. They come with measuring tape, an old photo or topographical map -- and in recent years, surveyors' equipment and laser scopes. Their quest is unwavering -- and probably pointless.
"In the southern Sequoia, especially, you have to be a masochist to be out there and thoroughly explore them," said Nate Stephenson, forester for Sequoia & amp; Kings Canyon National Parks. "There is a small possibility there could be a very big sequoia lurking out there less than a 1 percent chance. I don't ever want to say, 'There's no tree larger than the Sherman,' though. If I do, the next day someone will find it."