Big Lonely Doug
Big Lonely Doug is a gargantuan, old-growth Douglas-fir tree standing alone in a recent logging clearcut near Port Renfrew. Lonely Doug is a tree with a trunk as wide as a living room and stands taller than a downtown skyscraper. Doug’s total size comes in just behind the current champion Douglas-fir, the Red Creek Fir, the world’s largest, which grows just one valley over.
The fact that all of the surrounding trees have been clearcut around Doug gives the visitor a perspective that is unique from anywhere else. The approach to Doug follows a logging road off of the Gordon Main that travels through a forested area that suddenly opens up to expose the clearcut and Lonely Doug rising 230 feet to its upper branches. That is as high as a 23 story office tower. Anyone planning to visit Doug needs to be wearing solid hiking footwear and be prepared for steep terrain on the path that leads to Doug’s trunk base. Please walk softly around and near Doug, since loosening the earth at Doug’s base will quicken the erosion and give Doug less to hang on to as he grows older.