Coinciding with National Geographic magazine’s October 2009 cover article and evocative photos by Michael (Nick) Nichols, National Geographic Channel’s signature series EXPLORER aired a special episode on September 29, 2009 called EXPLORER: Climbing Redwood Giants. If you missed the premiere or want to add the episode to your collection, DVD’s are available for purchase from shop.NationalGeographic.com.
Part of NGS’ Preserve Our Planet initiative, the program will highlight the state of the redwood forest, new discoveries in the canopy by a Save the Redwoods League grantee and stunning new animations of the redwoods and the forest based on League data.
The show also gives people a sense of how it feels to be in a redwood forest, said John Rubin, who produced the film with James Donald.
“When I step into a redwood grove, I find myself whispering,” Rubin said. “It happens automatically, because I am awestruck. I feel as if I stepped into a cathedral. These are awesome living things. I wanted to do my best to convey that feeling.”
The film follows two explorers who are studying the redwoods in different ways: It follows J. Michael Fay horizontally as he travels the entire length of the redwood range on foot, and redwoods researcher Steve Sillett vertically as he explores the redwoods from ground to crown. Fay is Wildlife Conservation Society Senior Conservationist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.
Sillett, a recipient of five League research grants, and Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology at Humboldt State University, is conducting a pioneering study of the redwood canopy, one of the last unexplored frontiers on Earth. Read more about Steve Sillett.
Rubin and Sillett used data from the League’s Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) project. LiDAR involves firing a laser beam from a plane and recording the reflection to measure the height of the trees and the ground. The technology, much more accurate than traditional measurement techniques, is improving the League’s ability to determine the number and size of redwoods and prioritize forest restoration.
“We used LiDAR data not just to understand the forest, but also to look for new tall trees for Steve to climb and confirm the measurement,” Rubin said.
“We found a redwood that was head and shoulders above all its neighbors in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, a park that Steve thought he knew like his own backyard,” Rubin said.
“The question is, ‘Might this be the tallest redwood tree ever?’ Watch the show for the answer,” Rubin said.
The League and consultant Bill Kruse helped Rubin interpret the LiDAR data to produce stunning animations of the redwoods and the forest.
Viewers will get to meet another recipient of League research grants, Todd Dawson, plant physiologist, ecologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. EXPLORER shows how he studies the trees and how they capture water. Read about his League-supported research on helping redwoods survive in a changing climate.
Making the film wasn’t easy. Rubin overcame a number of obstacles, among them, the trees’ height.
“You can’t even see the top of the trees from the ground,” Rubin said. “The challenge was to get up there and get a feeling of what it looks like high up, a view that an ordinary hiker can’t get. So we worked very closely with Steve and a great team of climbers. We developed a brand-new cable dolly system. A platform moves along a 300-foot cable and carries a camera controlled by radio signals.”
For Rubin, overcoming the challenges paid off. “I came away with a sense of optimism about the future of redwoods, learning what I did from Steve Sillett and Mike Fay,” Rubin said.
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