I tell you, on a long enough timescale, California will figure out a way to over-regulate everything:

It sounds hard to hide the tallest tree in the world. But that's exactly what officials at California's Redwood National Park have been trying to do since 2006.

Now, the 380-foot redwood tree [named Hyperion] is officially off-limits. In a statement last week, the park wrote that visitors caught near it could face six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

For 16 years, the park kept the location of the tree hidden in order to protect it. They feared that too many visitors to the site could damage it and the delicate ecology of its surrounding slopes.

"People have the right to come and enjoy their parks," said Leonel Arguello, the park's chief of natural resources. "However, our concern has to do with the safety of visitors and the protection of resources. And when we see potential damage, we have to make decisions that protect those things."

California to people trying to enjoy beautiful natural resources:

Apparently people are trampling vegetation and leaving garbage behind when they go and visit ol' Hyperion, which raises the question: Can't the state just drop a microscopic fraction of its budget on a new, ecologically mindful trail with a few garbage bins nearby?

The state's response? "Nah not gonna do that:"

The answer is that at some point, park officials believe Hyperion will be surpassed by another tree.

"That's just the natural way of things in these open redwood forests," Arguello said. "If we built a trail, that's going to cost a lot of money. If we maintained a trail annually, that's going to cost a lot of money. And then when Hyperion is outgrown, we'll have to build a trail to another tree. We want to be careful with public dollars. We have plenty of trails already built for visitors."

"We'll have to build another trail to another tree." Oh nooooo! Poor California park officials! You can just picture their sad, miserable, unhappy lives, building all of those stupid trails out in the forests like it's their job or something.

Anyway it's ridiculously easy to find out where Hyperion is located if you want though at this point you're risking a cool $5,000 and half a year in jail if you do so tread carefully.

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