Look, I get it—there are a lot of things going on in the world, and it’s easy to scroll past another post about old growth forests. In this video, I’m standing in the Olympic Peninsula looking up at a Douglas fir that’s roughly 275 feet tall, and I’m trying to put into words how massive—and how rare—this kind of forest really is. Douglas firs aren’t just “Christmas trees.” They’re some of the biggest trees on Earth, and historically they were even taller. Trees like the Lynn Valley tree (415 feet) and the Nooksack Giant (465 feet) were measured, cut down, and turned into lumber. But the most impressive part isn’t just the height—it’s the age. Some of these giants are estimated around a thousand years old, and being in a forest like this feels almost holy, like a cathedral that’s alive. I also break down why old growth lumber is so valuable (tight rings, dense, durable), and why that value puts these forests in danger again through proposed changes to the Northwest Forest Plan and an executive order aimed at expanding logging across national forests. Wildfire gets used as the justification, but I’m not convinced thinning or cutting old growth is the answer. These big old trees are some of the most fire-resistant trees in existence. My takeaway is simple: we’ve already lost most of this, planting new trees can’t replace it, and if we don’t speak up, we’ll be left with cross-sections in museums instead of living forests.