Storms walloping California have toppled a giant sequoia famous for a “drive-thru” hole carved into its trunk by pioneers.
Calaveras Big Trees State Park volunteer Jim Allday told the San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/2i6Rotl ) the tree popular with generations of tourists went down Sunday afternoon and shattered on impact. He said it looked like the tree was lying “in a pond or lake with a river running through it.”
Photos taken by Allday show chunks of the fallen icon strewn around a tourist information board.
The Chronicle reports a tunnel was carved into the tree’s trunk in the 1880s to let tourists to pass through. It had allowed cars, but more recently was only crossed by hikers.
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