Wide Trees


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Published: July 22nd 2012
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Sierra NevadaSierra NevadaSierra Nevada

First view of the southern Sierra Nevada. The central granite peak is Mono Rock
Today begins a period of very tight budgeting.

I have a destination coming up that will require considerable cash to do well, and the only place to get it is saving money elsewhere.

These days are that elsewhere.


Sierra Nevada



I start today on the eastern edge of the Central Valley.

I’m in Visalia, the largest city along the Kanewa River.

I chose this river to follow into the Sierra Nevada.

I’ve had a taste during my raft trip on the Tuolumne River (see The best raft trip in the United States), and I want much more.

This mountain range is one of the most dramatic in the United States.

Famous naturalist John Muir (see The Golden State), who did so much to protect these mountains, called it the “Range of Light”.





The early part of the drive passes hills covered in scrub.

They don’t look very dramatic.

Much taller mountains appear in the distance, spiky peaks reaching into the clouds.

The road then reaches a reservoir with more rolling hills behind it.

In the 1930s, nearly every major river in the Sierras was dammed to provide irrigation water to the Central Valley,
Tunnel rockTunnel rockTunnel rock

Tunnel rock in Sequoia National Park, which the road used to go under
the Kanewa included.





Past the reservoir, the scenery improves.

The valley narrows, trees appear on the hillsides, and granite cliffs appear along the road.

It now looks like a wider version of the canyon I rafted through on the Tuolumne.

The big peaks in the distance get closer.

The road finally reaches an overlook with a view of a wall of them, accentuated by a huge bare granite monolith shaped like a giant tooth.

Unfortunately, some of the peaks are hidden by dark clouds, a premonition of bad weather to come.





Eventually, I reached the town of Three Rivers.

All the buildings are strung along the highway.

The town is located at (and named for) the spot where the Kanewa splits in three branches.

I ate here, at an organic café with really good deserts.

Soon afterward, the highway enters the Sierra Nevada for real.

It crosses into Sequoia National Park.


Sequoia National Park



At the entrance, I got some really bad news.

The highway follows the original route into the park, a carriage road built in the
Granite Cliffs in SequoiaGranite Cliffs in SequoiaGranite Cliffs in Sequoia

Being stuck in a construction backup is almost tolerable when the view looks like this
late 1800s.

Other than paving it in the early 1930s, the park service hasn’t been able to improve it since.

The situation finally caught up to them, so they are rebuilding and widening the road.

The problem for me is that, like the Pacific Coast Highway (see Grand Landscape and Gaudy Taste), they have to close the road to do so.

The road reopens for traffic once per hour.

I have entered the park right at the limit to make it, and missing means a VERY long wait.





My mountain experience was a lifesaver for this drive.

I pushed as hard as I could while still staying safe.

The road follows the river valley for a while, and then climbs the side.

This climb is steep, with lots of tight switchbacks.

It has some great views.

One direction shows a wall of glorious curved granite with sporadic trees.

Another shows the big bare monolith from earlier.

I did pull over long enough to get a picture of one of the park's kitschy highlights, the “tunnel rock”.

A huge boulder sits on a much smaller rock next to the highway.
Giant ForestGiant ForestGiant Forest

The Giant Forest of Sequoias near the museum

In the carriage road days, the road went directly under it.





I finally encountered a line of cars on the road.

My clock says I made it, by three minutes.

This wait became even more excruciating than the one in Big Sur, as the clock changed to the next hour and traffic remained still.

Just when I convinced myself I had missed the window, cars started to move.

We drove a one lane road sandwiched next to construction sites where people tore out the road to build proper foundations, for a good fifteen minutes.





Not long afterward, that dark cloud from earlier finally passed overhead.

Rain came down in sheets.

This was rather depressing, because it’s the first time I’ve had to pull the top up due to rain in over a month!

It got a little more depressing when tall trees started appearing on the side of the road.

Tall trees through the windshield look mostly like giant stumps.

These particular stumps looked like coast redwoods, except that the bark is more tan than red and they are much wider.
SentinelSentinelSentinel

The Sentinel Tree (with the fire scar) next to the Giant Forest Museum


These trees are the other branch of the redwood family in California (see Big Trees), the giant sequoia.





Just as the rain let up, the road reached the central portion of the park, the Giant Forest.

The first thing people see is a large log building surrounded by absolutely huge trees.

A big parking lot sits a distance away.

This is what I imaging a national park should look like, even more than Yellowstone.

This area was once the largest visitors’ facility in the park, including a hotel.

In the 1970s scientists discovered the buildings were killing the sequoias by impacting their roots, so the Park Service tore down most of the buildings.





The single remaining building is a museum on sequoia ecology, the Giant Forest Museum.

Sequoias, as noted above, are part of the same family as Coast Redwoods.

They do not grow as tall, but they are much wider, making them the largest trees in the world.

They live about as long, some four thousand years.

Like redwoods, sequoias have shallow wide spreading root systems.

Hurt the roots and the trees die.

Finally, sequoia trees depend
Tunnel LogTunnel LogTunnel Log

Sequoia National Park's tunnel log, a tourist misperception that became a reality
on frequent fires.

Little fires clean out deadfall and leave the ash sequoia seedlings need to germinate.

Huge forest fires will burn the top of the trees as well as the underbrush around the bases, killing them.

The little fires the trees need also remove the fuel needed for much bigger ones.

The park service has set prescribed burns in the park for at least thirty years, one of the reasons it never suffered the disaster Yellowstone had in 1988 (see Those peaks).





An enormous Giant Sequoia sits outside the museum.

It’s called the Sentinel.

The tree looks absolutely huge, 257 feet high and 36 feet in circumference.

The trunk goes straight up with no tapering until the first branches appear high above the ground.

The park service painted an outline of the tree on its side on the sidewalk so people can fully appreciate just how large it is.

Despite the bulk, this tree is merely average for an old growth sequoia.





From the museum, a road goes through the Giant Forest.

Although private vehicles are allowed this time of year,
Young ClusterYoung ClusterYoung Cluster

Group of sequoia trees named for Charles Young, the park's first superintendent
the park service heavily discourages it.

Taking the shuttle bus reduces both crowding and air pollution.

I could sort-of justify a drive in my car if the weather was nice (much of the view is, after all, straight up).

Since rain was still dripping, I took the bus.





The bus ride passes lots of trees.

An old growth forest has a mixture of trees of all ages.

The truly old ones really stick out, with incredibly wide trunks.

Mixed in with the sequoias are other species, mostly pines and firs.

Those species have caused a controversy in the National Monument next to the park.

The Forest Service, which administers it, has proposed allowing logging of trees other than sequoias.

Environmentalists are trying to defeat this, because such activity will damage the sequoia roots enough that they may die, counteracting the reason the National Monument was created in the first place.





The road contains three specific sites beyond the general forest views.

First up is the sequoia version of the Drive Through Redwood (see Forest from Another Time), the Tunnel Log.

In 1881, a promoter cut a passage through a sequoia
Mono Rock TrailMono Rock TrailMono Rock Trail

The trail disguised as a staircase that climbs Mono Rock
near Yosemite.

It died and blew over in 1969.

Many visitors to Sequoia National Park thought the tree was here, and kept asking park staff where to find it.

When a dead sequoia blew over and fell on the road in 1937, park managers had a solution to their problem.

They cut a big hole in the fallen tree, creating the tunnel log.

Unfortunately, the park bus can’t fit through the hole.

Next is a group of six large sequoia trees clustered together.

They all germinated at the same time from a cluster of seeds.

These groups are the sequoia version of the redwood cathedral and appear sporadically in the forest.

This particular one is named after Charles Young, an African American army officer who was the park’s first superintendent.


Mono Rock



The third sight is Mono Rock.

This is the large granite monolith seen from the road earlier.

A narrow trail climbs the peak from the parking lot.

The original version was laid out in 1917.

In 1931, the Civilian Conservation Corps replaced it with a trail of carefully constructed rock platforms and steps blasted into
Mono Rock narrowsMono Rock narrowsMono Rock narrows

The narrow section of the Mono Rock climb. Its perfectly safe, but doesn't look it
the rock.

Later on, the park service paved much of it in concrete and added metal safety railings.

This trail is now on the National Register of Historic Places.





The rain has stopped by this point, so I got off the bus to climb the rock.

A sign at the entrance warns to watch the weather, because the rock is a natural lightning rod (see Sacred Peaks).

Low clouds, of course, also ruin the view.





Thanks to the concrete and railings, the trail feels more like climbing a long set of stairs than traditional wilderness.

The first part goes through pine trees.

Sadly, none are sequoias.

It then reaches the monolith itself, a large bare spire of granite.

The trail first climbs the backside.

The trail is grafted directly to the side, with a long vertigo inducing view beyond the safety fence.

Big sequoias appear on the surrounding mountains, although they are hard to spot from the surrounding pines.





The trail climbs higher as the spire narrows, until it reaches a yard wide crack in what
Mono Rock VertigoMono Rock VertigoMono Rock Vertigo

For people brave enough to look over the railing, this is what they see. Its a long way down
is now a nine foot wide ridge.

Some people turn around at this point.

The trail climbs through the crack on perfectly constructed steps to a ledge, which has a perfect view of the Sierras.

Some of it was fuzzy through the clouds, but much was visible.

The canyon of the Middle Fork of the Kanewa River stretches off in the distance.

The construction I had to drive through on the way here is visible on the side.





From the ledge, the ridge widens out a bit and the trail once again climbs, clinging to the side.

Juniper trees grow from tiny cracks in the granite.

This stretch shows the Middle Fork of the Kanewa continuing into the Sierras as a classic U shaped glacial valley.

The more distant mountains were hidden by clouds.





The granite ridge narrows again, and the trail climbs on top of it.

The ridge at this point is six feet wide, the width of the trail.

Thanks to the safety railings, the trail is perfectly safe, but it feels much less so.

Looking beyond
Mono Rock summitMono Rock summitMono Rock summit

The top of Mono Rock, with the best view in Sequoia National Park
the railing shows a very steep slope of smooth granite, traveling a long way down.

This trail is even more exposed than the upper portion of Storm King Mountain in the Olympics (see Waterfalls and Trees).

The rain has held off, but I still moved quickly.

Getting caught out here by a storm is a very bad idea.





The trail finally ends at the very top of the monolith.

The top is a granite dome, all smooth curved rock.

The entire top is surrounded by safety railings, which became lightning rods in any thunderstorm.

Thankfully, the clouds have started to break and even some sunshine shone through.





The top of the rock shows a vast view of this part of the Sierra Nevada, with a long line of mountains to the west and the deep glacial valley flowing east.

The western mountains are the Great Western Divide, which blocks a view of the more famous Sierra Nevada Crest further west.

Exposed granite appears on the north, part of the same ridge that holds Mono Rock.

Signboards on the railings describe the scenery.
Great Western DivideGreat Western DivideGreat Western Divide

The Middle Fork of Kanewa River Canyon leads into the Great Western Divide, part of the Sierra Nevada

One of them mentions that the western view used to stretch all the way to the San Lucia Mountains on the coast, but pollution from the Central Valley now blocks the view.

The one negative is the cloud deck, which hides the tops of the taller mountains.





On the way down, the sky started to drip.

Rain gear can deal with that, but the wind or lightning that accompanies it is serious on an exposed trail like this one.

I moved as fast as I could on the stairs and avoided touching the railings.

Thankfully, it remained a drippy storm and thunder never appeared.

The rain stopped when I reached the bottom.


Big Trees Trail



Back at the museum, I headed for an area called the Big Trees Trail.

This trail circles an open meadow.

The meadow provides a moist sunny environment, so the sequoias around it grow larger than some other areas.

The trail has a number of signboards that explain sequoia ecology.





On the trail to the meadow, I got my first lesson on something every Sierra
Mono Rock view northwestMono Rock view northwestMono Rock view northwest

The Sierra Nevada, looking northwest from Mono Rock. The twisting line on the mountainside is the road that the park service was rebuilding
visitor has to deal with eventually, the Sierra black bear.

In western areas that have both grizzly and black bears, the more aggressive grizzlies tend to hold back the black bears.

Hunters killed off all the grizzly bears in the Sierra almost a century ago.

Since then, the black bears have run wild.

Unlike their counterparts elsewhere, these bears quite happily break into vehicles to get food.

They have learned how to cut down the bags hung in trees that most backpackers use to protect supplies.

They will also attack hikers if provoked.

On the trail to the meadow, I encountered a hiker going the other way quickly.

He told me about the black bear on the trail ahead.

I promptly turned around and took another trail.





At the meadow, the trail passes open grass on one side and huge sequoias on the other.

Most of the trees are shorter than the sentinel, but they are wider.

Like redwoods, young sequoias are shorter than their elders.

Unlike redwoods, truly old sequoias are wider than middle aged ones.

The widest of these trees were double
Big Tree MeadowBig Tree MeadowBig Tree Meadow

Mountain meadow surrounded by huge sequoia trees
the size of old growth Douglas Firs I saw on the Trail of the Patriarchs (see The Great Mountain) and wider than the record western cedar in Quinault (see Entering the Forest Kingdom).





A number of the sequoias had black scars near their bases.

These are the legacy of past fires.

Many of the oldest trees have these fire scars.

Like coastal redwoods, mature sequoias will survive small fires.

As noted above, fire is an essential part of this ecosystem which removes deadfall.

Unlike coastal redwoods, none of these fires burned through the entire tree.





Like the drive, the meadow illustrates the major difference between a coast redwood forest and a sequoia forest.

Coast redwood forests contain only redwoods.

Their tall branches block out light for anything else.

Sequoia forests are mixed forests.

The sequoias are surrounded by other pine trees.

All of those in this forest are old growth, and they still look puny next to the sequoia trees.

Most are shorter, all are skinnier, and the oldest are two thousand years younger.


General Sherman and Congress Trails



Although the
General Sherman TrailGeneral Sherman TrailGeneral Sherman Trail

Along the trail to the General Sherman Tree
meadow is nice, I want the experience of walking through a vast sequoia forest, like I had with the redwoods at Humboldt.

It exists in another part of the Giant Forest, along the General Sherman and Congress trails.

The trailhead is located on a side road a ways from the museum.

Since the rain had finally stopped, I got the view from an open car I missed earlier, with huge trees stretching above the road.





Even though it’s not on the main road, the General Sherman Trail is immensely popular.

It goes to the General Sherman Tree, the largest in the world by volume.

The army officers who ran the park in the early days named it after the victorious Civil War general.

The trail snakes down a hillside with no sequoias on it.

It reaches a wide stone plaza with something that looks like a small island outlined on the ground.

The outline is a cross section of the tree.

The size is unbelievable, twice as wide as I am tall.

The plaza has a view of the tree, although it’s hard to find surrounded by other
General Sherman TreeGeneral Sherman TreeGeneral Sherman Tree

The world's largest living thing by volume
sequoias.

With study, a tree taller than the rest finally sticks out.





After the plaza, the trail enters the sequoia forest.

Wide tall trees reach for the heavens on all sides.

The feeling is less overwhelming than being in a redwood grove, because the trees are further apart and surrounded by other plants.

Getting close to a single tree, though, is another story.

The tree’s bulk just blocks the view, until it appears to be the only thing that exists.

Old trees usually stick out when hiking in old growth forests.

Old growth sequoias REALLY stick out.





The trail finally reaches the General Sherman tree.

It is 275 feet high and an unbelievable 103 feet in circumference.

The tree is surrounded by a fence, to prevent people from stepping on the roots and killing it.

Like record size redwoods, it does not initially appear to be the record holder because it is surrounded by other huge sequoias.

Close up, though, it’s overwhelming.

The shear bulk at the base is almost beyond human comprehension.

(National Geographic published a famous photo
Congress TrailCongress TrailCongress Trail

Up close to sequoias on the Congress Trail
of twenty people holding hands in a circle around the base of this tree).

The incredible width continues far above the ground, where the first branches finally appear.

Some of those are wider than the fir trees in this forest.

The tree is both taller and wider than most sequoias, giving it the record.





From this tree, the Congress Trail twists along the surrounding hillside, forming a loop.

Unlike the first portion, the trail quickly narrows with trees and bushes close to the path.

It passes a number of narrow stream valleys, all filled with sequoia trees.

One notable valley has the shape of a rocky bowl with sequoia trees all over the side.

A tree has fallen into the bowl, looking like an even larger version of the fallen old growth Douglas Fir along the Storm King Trail.





One of the trees fell directly above and across the trail.

Hikers need to scramble under it, through a space about four feet high.

Doing so after a rain storm reveals a scenic treasure, a little waterfall on the hillside, directly under the tree!
Giant ForestGiant ForestGiant Forest

Another look at the Giant Forest along the Congress Trail






On the way back to General Sherman, the trail gives a view of a large wood slab that looks vaguely like a huge tooth gear.

Close up, it becomes a cross section of a sequoia log.

This trail used to be the main route to the parking lot, before parking was moved due to damaging the sequoia trees.

The park service erected the log slab in the 1950s to show visitors the size of an old growth tree.

It came from a tree near what is now the museum, which park managers cut down after it was struck by lightning and became unstable.

The sign notes that park service policy has changed since then.

Despite the ecological incorrectness, I found the slab a better indicator of sequoia width over the outline on the plaza earlier.


Sierra Nevada is Bear Country



I spent the night at the campground that replaced the original visitors’ facilities, Lodgepole.

It’s located along the Marble Fork of the Kanewa River, in a classic Sierra Nevada glacial valley.

The campground is here because this valley has no sequoia trees to damage.


Tree and waterfallTree and waterfallTree and waterfall

Fallen sequoia tree with a waterfall underneath it, along the Congress Trail



To get my campground permit tonight, I had to sign a form called the “bear contract”.

As noted above, black bears in the Sierra are incredibly aggressive about getting food.

The contract lists all the things campers must do to keep bears away.

This is incredibly important; once bears get used to finding food in the campground it can mean death, for both humans and bears.

Unlike the old Yogi Bear cartoon, these bears become aggressive after raiding a picnic basket.





The most important bear defense item is something I will need to get comfortable with during my time in this mountain range, the bear box.

The box is a large metal contraption with two swinging doors that lock by springs.

The center of the doors has a sprocket.

To open the box, a camper sticks a handle on the sprocket and turns hard.

The sprocket is there instead of just putting a handle on the door because Sierra black bears are smart enough to turn a handle!

EVERYTHING with any sort of odor must go in the bear box, except when using it.

This includes things like bug
Sequoia cross sectionSequoia cross sectionSequoia cross section

A look at the sheer width of a giant sequoia
spray, suntan lotion, and toothpaste.

Putting everything in after arriving at a site is a real pain.

Constantly going back and forth to the box while cooking is even more of a pain.

Both are far preferable to dealing with an aggressive hungry bear in the middle of the night.

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