A tree falls in Oregon

In the exhibit gallery at the top of the Space Needle, there's a graphic of the relative heights of the tallest structures in the world. We're perennially fascinated with records and record-breaking, and the tallest-in-the-world designation is an important one. Perhaps the impulse to hold the title is best captured in the story of the Tower of Babel, which functions mainly as a cautionary tale to keep our hubris in check. Warnings against ascending to the heights of the creator seem to be largely ignored here on the ground, for there is an undeniable human urge to build, build, build as high as we possibly can without having the thing topple like a stack of Jenga blocks.

Up until recently, when the record began to break faster than our ability to keep up with it, most people could name the tallest building in the world. For much of human history, it was the Great Pyramid in Egypt (481 feet). Then, for a time it was the Eiffel Tower (1,000 feet). Next it was the Empire State Building (1,239 feet), the World Trade Center Towers (1,350 feet), and the Sears Tower (1,454 feet). They're building a hotel in Dubai right now that when completed will rise to a height of 2,625 feet. By comparison, Seattle's tallest building, the Columbia Tower, is only 937 feet tall.

Lesser known are the locations and heights of the world's tallest trees. Maybe this is because the trees are just there — they are not markers of human ingenuity. They exist independent of us; they exist despite us. Most likely the very tallest were cut down during the last century and turned into houses or chairs or kindling. We use trees more than we celebrate them, and only recently have we come to protect them. The great swathes of primeval forest are largely gone; only patches remain.

In last week's triple-digit windstorm, a great Sitka spruce tree in Oregon — once recognized as the largest of its kind in the nation — snapped at a height of 75 feet and fell to the forest floor. Unlike so many other big trees, it died a natural death.

The tallest ancient building trumps today's tallest tree, which stands at a "mere" 379 feet. It is Sequoia sempervirens, otherwise known as the redwood. Imagine a living thing rising to more than half the height of the Space Needle! Such tall trees host entire ecosystems in their uppermost branches — hanging fern gardens, lichen and moss, as well as plants and animals only recently discovered. Tree-climbing scientists have found rare salamanders, plankton, and soil supporting huckleberry bushes at hundreds of feet. Like the unexplored depths of the ocean, we've only just begun to study the rich life of the tall tree canopy.

The Sitka spruce that fell this week in Klootchy Creek Park near Seaside, Ore., in Clatsop County, was "only" 204 feet high, taller than a hockey rink is long. It was also the largest living thing in Oregon — larger by volume than any other flora or fauna in the state. A tourist attraction, the tree was the largest Sitka spruce in the nation but shared the designation with another Sitka in Olympic National Park in Washington, near Lake Quinault. A challenge to the Klootchy title in the 1980s led the officials at American Forests, who keep the National Register of Big Trees, to declare a tie. The circumference of the Klootchy Sitka spruce was 53 feet, its diameter 17. If, god forbid, they had carved out its base and put in a road, you could have driven an SUV right through its trunk.

The National Register of Big Trees is less concerned with height and more concerned with overall tree size. They use a point system similar in technique to that employed by the Boone & Crockett Club, which keeps record of big game trophy kills, with the notable exception that the National Register most certainly prefers that the trees not be felled in the pursuit of a measurement. A key component of their mission is environmental preservation and restoration.

The problem with tree height is that for the giants, it's a difficult thing to gauge. The most accurate measurement is taken by ascending to the top and dropping an extraordinarily long tape measure to the base. Klootchy's high-traffic tourist spot notwithstanding, most of the tallest trees are hidden in little-explored terrain without easy access. They've also been tricky to ascend until recent improvements in tree-climbing gear allowed entry to the canopy without causing damage to the tree itself. As recently as the 1970s, a team of French scientists went so far as to develop a dirigible raft, which they used to float amongst the treetops. The most common method for measuring tree height, however, is from the ground, and there are limitations. Many of the old, established records for tallest trees have since been found to be inaccurate by as much as 15 percent, and usually taller, not shorter than actuality.