SEASIDE, Ore. (AP) - It is a ritual for Diane Chadwell, as much a part of a trip to the North Oregon Coast as clam chowder, Haystack Rock and a walk on the beach.

"It's part of my pilgrimage. Each time I come to Cannon Beach, I have to stop and pay my respects to the spruce," Caldwell said.

"It's like going to Yellowstone and not seeing Old Faithful," said her husband, Randy.

The massive Sitka spruce at Klootchy Creek County Park, believed to be the largest of its species in the United States, has stood on the banks of the Necanicum River for more than 750 years, weathering storms, soaking up coastal fog and escaping the harvest that befell similar-sized brothers with which it lived long before Lewis and Clark visited near here.

"It's gorgeous," said Brent James of Tigard. "It kind of represents everything that's good about Oregon."

A sign on U.S. 26 east of its junction with U.S. 101, diverts a steady stream of traffic across a single-lane bridge into a parking lot 100 feet from the base of the giant.

Some plan to stop. Most simply see the sign, "Biggest spruce tree in the United States," and turn in out of curiosity.

"Oh, wow. That's spectacular," said Ralph Sheese of Rutledge, Ga., as he caught his first glimpse. "Absolutely fantastic. What a sight. What do you think it is, 80 feet tall?"

The sign on the ramp that leads to a cedar deck built around the base of the tree says that it's 206 feet tall, 56 feet in circumference and more than 750 years old.

"Wow. Amazing," Sheese said. "Can you imagine that? This tree was 500 years old when our country was founded."

He's full of questions as he gazes skyward.

"I wonder if it's hollow inside? I wonder how long ago that top broke out?"

Indeed, the spruce was a lot taller at one time, before it met the fate that is the badge of longevity for most Pacific Northwest old growths, the broken top.

The only other battle mark on the big spruce is an apparent lightning scar that spirals around the trunk, ending some 70 feet from the ground.

"Anything that stays around that long, bad things are bound to happen," said James Benton of Menlo Park, Calif.

Benton is from northern California and knows that there is something that can compare.

"There's the redwoods, but this isn't the same type of tree, so it's still impressive," he said. "All the rest of the trees around here are kind of average, so what enabled this one to get so big?"

Actually, the biggest Douglas fir in the United States was nearby until - weakened by a 1962 storm - it was felled by wind.

Michelle James of Tigard and Susie Nylander of Menlo Park peer into the top of the spruce, admiring the huge, stout branches.

"The branches start so far up. It's like 100 feet before there's any branch," Nylander said.

Chadwell says there was no deck around the tree when she last visited.

"I was here with my daughter, and it was all trashy and garbagy around here," she said. "I'm glad they've cleaned it up. This deck wasn't here, and you just walked straight up to the tree, and the moss on the tree wasn't as far down. I think people were ripping it off, touching it too much. Now it looks like it's getting the honor it deserves."

The deck was built in 1995.

"So many people were stopping and were walking around, stomping on the roots, we had concern for the tree," said Steve Meshke, the Clatsop County parks foreman. "We were afraid they were going to kill it."

The tree has attracted about 100,000 visitors per year since 1988, when Clatsop County purchased the 25-acre park for $36,700 from Cavenham Forest Industries.

It is 15.9 feet in diameter and contains 60,000 board feet of lumber, said retired Cavenham forester Tom Park of Astoria, reading from a booklet compiled by Crown Zellerbach Corp., one of Cavenham's predecessors as owners of the big tree.

"The ink was barely dry on the Magna Carta when this tree sprouted as a seedling," he said, still reading from the booklet. The Magna Carta, the charter of English liberty, was signed in 1215 by King John.

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