BACKPACKER in Best American Sports Writing 2008
Tom Clynes' "Above & Beyond" featured in writing anthology
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It’s a banner week for BACKPACKER kudos: Yesterday, we told you about Steve Friedman’s excellent “The Long Trail to Jail” winning a Gold Medal from the Society of American Travel Writers. Today, we’re stoked to represent for writer Tom Clynes, whose May 2007 story “Above & Beyond” was chosen for the 2008 edition of The Best American Sports Writing.
“Above & Beyond” chronicles Clynes’ quest to find the tallest tree in the world, which grows in a secret location deep in the backcountry of Redwood National Park. From the story:
We had come to this remote basin in northern California’s Redwood National Park to hunt for the world’s tallest living tree, a coast redwood nearly 380 feet in height. Explorers had discovered it last summer, in a remnant stand of old growth in the southern section of the park. Growing quietly on a mountainside for centuries, the newly crowned giant is some 70 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty, or about as tall as a 40-story building. Its discoverers christened it Hyperion, after the Titan (of Greek mythology) who fathered the sun.
Click this link to continue reading about Clynes’ search for the highest tree in the world.
—Ted Alvarez