Tsuga mertensiana

On September 13, 1888, after traveling two months along the spine of the Cascade Range, Judge John B. Waldo, Oregon’s foremost nineteenth-century conservationist, and his companions rested at Island Lake and carved their names into the mountain hemlock near the southeast shore of the lake. This trip provided first-hand information for Waldo to use in his lobbying efforts to support legislation designating the 4.5 million-acre Cascade Forest Reserve in 1893. That reserve is now represented by the Mt. Hood, Deschutes, Willamette, Umpqua, Winema, and Rogue River national forests. The Waldo Tree is the only known tangible evidence of Waldo’s 1888 trip, a journey that is significant in the forest conservation history of Oregon and the entire Pacific Northwest.

Tree Facts

• Age: 200 years
• Circumference: 8′ 4″
• Dedicated on: April 7, 1999

Visit this tree

The tree stands in the Sky Lakes Wilderness, Rogue River National Forest, approximately 200’ north of Forest Service trail 982, about 0.5 mile west of the trail’s junction with the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail.