Lord of the Tree Rings: Freaky forest a towering inheritance
John Thompson inherits a northern California forest from his mother. He tells his story in the latest episode of 'Strange Inheritance' with Jamie Colby. It premieres on the FOX Business Network on Monday, April 2, at 9:30 p.m. ET.
A redwood that looks like a giant candelabra. Another with roots in the shape of an octopus.
A natural cathedral formed by nine behemoths that shot up side-by-side. A 400-year-old spruce that’s actually a dozen living trees in one.
They’re just a few of the weird old growths in a freaky northern California forest that Marylee Thompson passed down to her son John. He tells his story in the latest episode of “Strange Inheritance” with Jamie Colby. It premieres on the FOX Business Network on Monday, April 2, at 9:30 p.m. ET.
Some of the trees are thousands of years old and 300 feet tall, Thompson says. His parents purchased the forest – located along Highway 101 near Klamath – in 1946, then turned it into a tourist magnet called “Trees of Mystery.”
“When I was about 8 years old my job was to crawl around the brush along the trail and pick up the flashbulbs people threw out after taking pictures,” John Thompson says.
It was a lot of flashbulbs. In their biggest years, attendance hit 400,000 visitors.
“You might see something like this in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones,” says Doug Kirby, author of a guide to roadside attractions. “It just transports you to another world. It has a very mystical, spiritual feeling.”