Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

In 2003 a Bald Cypress was reported to the Arkansas Forestry Commission to see if it might be the Champion Bald Cypress of Arkansas. It turned out to be the new Champ. The location was determined to be S10, T5S, R1W. Even more exact, its location was determined to be Lat 34.2712 Long 91.1108. On the following maps you will see that it all lines up. Located just west of Jones Lake and barely within the WRNWR boundary.

Then came Dovish. Same tree, same dimensions. Guided by Jeff Denman of the WRNWR with map in hand they located the tree on the north end of Lower White Lake.

Sooooooo . . . are there two trees? Was Jeff Denman mistaken? Did the AFC make a mistake?

I think it is time for a new Corps of Discovery to set out and see for ourselves.

Funny you should mention that. I had both locations marked, but was thinking maybe one of the location descriptions was an error or typo of some type; never thought it might be a close race between TWO competing giants.

DeBo and I drove to Jones Lake after the Arkansas Post float, which was also the same day we determined roads to H-Lake were underwater. If 1 more hour of daylight had been available, I would have visited Tree #1 as an "end of day" quickie.

Tree #2 was one of two possible destinations on 11/27, the day before our Maddox Bay float. (We ended up at Lost Lake near Jacks Bay instead.) At the current water levels, I'm estimating the trip to tree #2 at between 1.5 to 2 miles (one way) from where the road disappears underwater. The "Crow flies" distance is only about 1 mile. This trip might be interesting; there is some current through the trees down there, very few spots of dry ground, and a possible upstream paddle to return to base. In dryer months, I'm told you can walk to this tree, but where's the fun in that?

Back to your original proposal: You talked me into it. I've pencilled it in for Sunday 12/6 to visit at least one of these locations. If there are no other "paddling" takers, DeBo and I may just take the motorboat and visit BOTH.

On 12/6/2009, the day after DeBo's "Trip #5", we made the trek south to investigate.

At location #1, we found two interesting trees, but no "record" bald cypress within several hundred feet. First, a very large oak. The base is impressive, but it was the canopy of the upper tree that really impressed, and that can't be seen in this photo. :



Near there, we found a very interesting tree, apparently created when one tree fell against another. After time, these trees fused together into one.



(My "secondary" title for this photo was, "yes, this suit makes you look fat".)

Both of the above photos were several hundred feet from the gps coordinates as given. Standing at the exact location (within normal gps error tolerances, of course), and looking in all directions, we saw many big trees, but none that we believe to be state records.


Finally, two shots of the record cypress, as found at the second location, and highlighted in the Dovish video:



As compared to DeBo's 13 foot canoe



As compared to my 12 foot jon boat.

CONCLUSIONS: If the tree dimensions were different in at least one of the characteristics, I would say there is a simple typo and that there might be two "record setting" trees. But since the dimensions are exact on all three counts, my conclusion is that the first set of coordinates is probably simply an error. The one and only record bald cypress is located at N34.24807 W91.10619 At normal river levels, this can be reached via 2-wheel drive automobile with a hike of less than 0.25 miles. At yesterday's level of 25.5 feet on the Clarendon gage, it took a boat trip down Hurricane Bayou, up Essex Bayou, a short trip through flooded timber along a four-wheeler trail that was now a Class 1 rapid, and a very short drag across a mud flat. Ending at 11 minutes before sunset (of course)