Exactly one hundred and fifty years ago John Muir walked around in the same grove of giant sequoia trees that I walked around in today, and stood next to the same two thousand ton behemoth that had been growing for two and a half millenia.
It has only been known as the General Sherman tree for a tiny fraction of its immense lifespan. I imagine it standing there blissfully unaware of its association with a cruel and destructive human being, indeed unaware of any human activity at all.
But we are making our presence known.
“Death of large sequoias (over 4 ft in diameter) in wildfires prior to 2015 was very rare”
This was my first trip to Sequoia National Park. I explored the tiny section shown on this 1927 USGS topological map.
(Wikipedia)
It’s worth clicking through to the high-res version, zooming in, and imagining what it was like to reach that place in 1875 before there were roads and cars never mind GPS-connected handheld computers.
On the Congress trail in this densest of Sequoiadendron giganteum groves, other magnificent specimens suffer comparison to notable Americans, most painfully this cluster called The House. (There’s a Senate too.)
I live among coast redwoods and was delighted to finally meet their shorter and stouter cousins. If you’ve been thinking about a visit, know that the park is open but unstaffed. I only saw one ranger and he was on latrine duty, nobody is collecting the entrance fee, yet another bit of economic fallout from the shutdown.
After walking the Congress trail I headed down to the museum (which is closed), hiked over to Moro Rock, and walked up the steps to take in the view.
(Wikipedia)
Someday I hope to ascend Half Dome using the cable hand rails but this was an easy way to enjoy the view from a big granite dome. Whitney is only a dozen miles away but “the Great Western Divide rises high enough to block it”.
My day started in Three Rivers and ended in Tehachapi after a long and rewarding detour into another section of the park.
The road up to Lake Isabella winds gradually through Sierra foothills that seemed mellower and more mesmerizing than the ones I’ve seen farther north. The road down follows the Kern River as it flows over endless pillows of granite. There’s nothing like a big dose of the majesty of California, a friend likes to say. It sure was powerful medicine today.
