These incredible pictures show how a pair of 1,500-year-old giant sequoias - whose branches are the size of normal trees - dramatically fell to the ground.
A German tourist watched the two 250ft trees fall to the ground at the Trail of 100 Giants in California and captured the amazing moments and the crushing sound on video.
The trees lay the length of a football pitch and their diameter of their torn roots and base was 20ft.
Huge: One of two downed trees lies across the popular Trail of 100 Giants at Sequoia National Forest, California, temporarily closing the trail
Amazing height: Some of the giant trees in the area are 245ft tall and have diameters of 18ft
'It can't be possible,' Gerrit Panzner, who watched the tree fall, told
Catholic Online. 'That tree has been there thousands of years and then you realise the tree is falling and you had to run.'
He heard loud 'crinkling' noises before they eventually fell - but nobody was injured. The trees are believed to have fallen over because they could simply not support their weight anymore.
They fell on the Trail of 100 Giants in the Sierra Nevada, which is a route accessible to wheelchairs that allows visitors to view more than 100 huge sequoia trees.
Now Forest Service officials are deciding what to do with two of the world's largest trees, as many conservationists have suggested they should be left alone.
Dramatic: A German tourist watched the two trees fall to the ground at the Trail of 100 Giants in California and captured the amazing moments and the crushing sound on video
On camera: The trees lay the length of a football pitch and their fused base is around three times the average height of a human
This would mean the trail would have to be rerouted around them, which could cause problems for wheelchair users who would not be able to use steep alternative paths, reported NBC News.
Fallen trees can also be a habitat for wildlife and release nutrients back into the soil, reported the
Los Angeles Times. The trees became a national monument 11 years ago.
Forest officials have even suggested building a bridge over the trees or cutting them up for firewood, reported NBC News.
They are set to make a decision on what to do by next summer, but until then are inviting the public to help them decide.
'It's very, very rare for a giant Sequoia tree to die standing up unless it's in a very, very severe fire,' a district ranger told
Catholic Online.
I would suggest using them to build 1 or 2 massive pavilions on park property for the public to use/enjoy. Maybe add some plaques that show them in their standing glory and some measurements/specs on the board feet contained in each one. Perhaps the plaques could be inlaid in a "disc" cut from the base of each tree that was laid in the center floor of each pavilion so that the public could grasp the behemoth size of their standing glory. The size of timbers/beams that could be milled from these are rare if not unheard of. I would never suggest cutting such trees down but it would be a shame to let them just rot in the forest, now that they have fallen.