---
name: "Champion Lodgepole Pine"
subtitle: "A 110-foot pine that germinated fifty years before Plymouth Rock"
date: 2026-08-01
link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/champion-lodgepole-pine"
linkText: "atlasobscura.com"
source: "Atlas Obscura"
topics: [outdoors-and-nature, travel-and-places]
tags: [trees, california, hiking, record-holder]
description: "The largest lodgepole pine on the U.S. Forest Service's California record — over 110 feet and 440 years old, holding out in the San Bernardino Mountains."
---

It started growing around 1560 and has not stopped: over 110 feet tall, 9,300 board feet of volume, and the largest lodgepole pine the U.S. Forest Service has recorded in California. The strange part is the address. Lodgepoles belong to cold high country, and this one has held on in the San Bernardino Mountains above Big Bear Lake, a short walk from the trailhead and improbably far south for its species.
