Beautiful!

I think I am going to have to visit this place.

radagast,
If you could remember exactly how to get to the tree, I'd like to visit it. I live in western NY and could possibly provide current pics of the old guy.

Hmmm... How to get there? Well, I'll give you what I remember. We (my brother and I) entered the park from I what must have been the northern side and as we drove along (without crossing the river), we ran into a tourist-stopping point that sold lots of postcards, nick-nacks, and other neat stuff. They also sold ice cream in various forms, which was good since it was summer at the time. Outside the tourist building, there was a big sign detailing the dam that lies in the Genessee River Valley. This was all right next to a place where one can look over the edge into the canyon below.

After that, we continued driving deeper into the park along the same main road, stopping at various places, but always heading deeper in. This oak was located at one of those places where we stopped and before we got to the waterfalls, or at least before we got to the last waterfalls since that is when we turned around to leave from the direction we came to head on to Niagara Falls.

Hmmm.. what else... If you look in the right of the photo, you can see a rather distinctive, sharp bend in the canyon that I think would be a good way to distinguish where the oak stands since that was a rather unusual bend in the canyon. Also, if you look in the photo, there is a stone retaining wall at this particularly stopping point, so it must have been a relatively formal place to look around.

I wish I had a GPS reading on that tree's location so I could have given you more info, but I hope that information sorta helps. Good luck finding it - I guess it is a real treasure hunt!

Thanks for the info. I've printed it up and have it saved for a weekend trip come sunshine and better weather. I might get around to it come early March, but I don't know, probably not until mid-May to June. I'll post pictures when/if I find it. Still, what a tree!

Did anyone from upstate New York get a chance to visit this park? I hope this tree is still there, and I suspect that there are other big trees like it in those woods based upon what I recall of the place...

that looks a fine old oak,wonder how old it is?

Good question!

I've learned that a lot of trees are not as old as you might expect based upon their size, but ones growing in the wild are older per given size than ones growing in more controlled environments (farmlands, suburbs, etc.) I'd guess around 100 years to maybe 150, based upon similar huge oaks in Washington DC that had a max age of 100 years, but are growing in a warmer environment (longer growing season) and in a more controlled environment (the DC Mall).

Must be fairly old as its an oak and theyre very slow growers.

Gorgeous tree! I wonder how old it is? I bet God was climbing it when he was a kid.

larry .... its an old wives tale.. that oaks are slow growers .... they are growing .. in youth.. 3 to 5 feet per year after full establishment in my yard ... i am sure older trees slow down to some extent.. but its hard to see how much they grow.. when they are 100 feet tall ... ken

I think your oaks must be much quicker growers than ours Ken. English Oak and Turkey Oak crawl along in their own time. I have one in the garden grown from an acorn and its hardly moved. This spring it put out a spurt of growth and I thought it was going to rocket but come summer it had stopped and went back to creep mode. Its one reason they're hardly used as bonsai and never recommended as such from seed,you'd be waiting years before it got to trainable age! Maybe its our climate difference that inhibits their growth,I don't know but all the oaks I've met have been snails. There's a saying about oaks,300 years growing,300 years dying.

Tiny trees on bedrock outcroppings can be ancient, giant ones in moist canyons young.

Ok I am seriously going to have to take and post a pic of the live oak in my back yard. It's about 6' to 8' in diameter. I have a 5' 3" spread of my arms and don't even come a 3rd of the way around it.