PSW ASPEN OFFICIALLY DESIGNATED LARGEST IN THE STATE
High School and Elementary School Students Assist Land Trust with Research
Employing a unique measuring technique that involved facing away from the tree and bending over to look through their legs at its top, students at Washington Elementary School measured the massive tree in Kids Camp at Pine Street Woods. Suspected to be bigger and taller than the largest recorded quaking aspen in Idaho, the students achieved surprisingly accurate results with a creative measurement method.
Height estimations deduced by the elementary school students came remarkably close to the official measurement performed by the Sandpoint High School forestry class under the supervision of longtime forester Bill Love, who also serves on the Forest Management Committee for Pine Street Woods. The high school students carefully performed three different measurements of the tree to determine its ranking compared to the existing record holder in Idaho’s Big Tree Program, and were delighted to find that PSW’s specimen is a record breaker, clocking in with an impressive 97 feet tall and nearly 11 feet around!
Sandpoint High School students pose in front of the massive aspen tree after measuring it.
Kaniksu Land Trust’s nature-immersive outdoor education program connects students of all ages with the land through hands-on learning in the wild. Programs take students outside to explore and discover connections and concepts in nature. By integrating nature into the curriculum, KLT aims to foster a deeper connection to place, boost academic engagement, and support students' social-emotional development. Through partnerships with local schools, KLT provides consistent, year-round outdoor learning experiences that inspire curiosity, resilience, and a lifelong conservation ethos.
Regan Plumb, Kaniksu Land Trust’s Conservation Director sent an official nomination to Idaho’s Big Tree Program, which is overseen by the University of Idaho Extension.
“We’ve suspected for some time that this tree was special,” said Plumb, “but what a thrill to learn that Pine Street Woods has a record-holder!”
It was recently confirmed that the aspen is the largest of its kind in the state of Idaho,The tree stands an impressive 97 feet tall and 11 feet around, topping the previous champion in Blaine County, which measured 87 feet tall and 9.5 feet in circumference.
The most famous quaking aspen, “Pando,” meaning “I spread” in Latin, is located in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah. Spanning 106 acres, this single tree presents itself as an aspen grove consisting of approximately 47,000 stems growing from a single massive root. The current national record-holder for the largest single stem quaking aspen is 119 feet tall and 118 feet around.
Thanks to the innovative measuring technique of the students, the giant aspen at Pine Street Woods now holds the title as the largest in the state. As new suckers begin to emerge from the single root beneath, in time, this big tree will spread into a grove of its own.
