Rural Mysteries of the North Fork Polygon

Unauthorized Tree-Felling

Meadow Vista: Sometime during the 1st week of April 2005, someone or something cut down a healthy 200-year old cedar tree across Placer Hills Road from Simpson Ranch, blocking a popular Meadow Vista hiking trail. No one knows who did it, or why, or how this vile act was executed without detection! The property owner even posted a sign on the desecrated stump asking for information on the unauthorized felling.

This mystery is still unsolved. Possible motives include:

• The misguided hero complex of someone thinking the tree was going to fall on the road;
• A sadistic desire to inconvenience hikers; or
• A desperate attempt to retrieve something valuable from the upper reaches of the tree.

Follow-up: We returned on January 5, 2006 to search for more clues to this cold case file. Here's what we discovered:

• The dead and down tree was "topped" prior to felling.
• A neighboring tree was also "topped" but it was not chopped down.
• Weirder still, we were unable to find the top of either tree where they should have been laying on the forest floor.

More Mysteriously Bent and Twisted Trees and Plants:

Treetennas | Forked Pines | Giant Artichokes | Colossal Wisteria | Bowman Mystery Flower | Unauthorized Tree Felling | Tree Ranch Review | Amazing Acorn Autumn | Symbiotic Tree Fence | Giant Artichokes | 90-degree Tree

Rural Mysteries of the North Fork Polygon