Livin' Large (Sequoia National Park Post)

Sequoia National Park, See history and science of the Sequoia trees within the Kings Canyon Post. 

The General Sherman Tree is the world's largest tree by volume.  It has a height on 275 feet, and a diameter of 34 feet.  It is estimated to have a volume of 52,508 cubic feet, and to be between 2300 to 2700 years old. The top of the tree is dead, but that doesn't stop it from growing.  Every year, the tree produces enough wood for a very large tree of other species.

At a viewpoint along the trail, you can take a picture of the tree from top to bottom.  

Looking up for a six foot human is the equivalent of a mouse looking up at a six foot human.  

To show the width of the tree

Moro Rock is a 300 foot change in elevation over four tenths of a mile, which is taken in over 375 stairs.  From the top the view is really neat, and even see down onto the road we would later take to get out of the park!  The road happened to be a road filled with switchbacks, which vehicles over 22 feet were not advised.  Harvey is 24 feet!  Dad of course went for it. We need to thank Bill for the recommendation of Moro Rock, because my Dad says that otherwise we wouldn't have known take this "hike."

Family portrait at the summit

From a turnout: you could see the stairs to top.

Moro Rock from the road out of the Park

We had planned to stay at a reservoir near the exit of the park, but as evidence to the three year drought that is occurring here, the water level was incredibly low, and as a result of the near 100 degree heat, we moved on toward San Francisco in hopes of cooler temperatures.

The sun over the road

Driving out in the morning!

Ciao!
Amy

The Land of the Giant Kings (Kings Canyon National Park Post)

Timber enjoyed the whole selfie thing a bit much, and so began taking them herself.  

Look at that happy doggie smile!

Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks are both parts of the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.  Since 1943, the parks have been jointly administrated due to their proximity and their protection of the "big trees."  Sequoia is the older of the two, holding the title of America's second National Park, established in 1890.  A week later, Congress tripled its size and created the Grant Grove National Park.  Thanks to the work of the Sierra Forest Reserve, more land was protected in 1893.  In 1926, Kern Canyon merged with Sequoia.  In 1940, Kings Canyon National Park was created and merged with Grant Grove.   In tandem, the two parks protect more than half of the remaining Sequoia groves.  

The General Grant Grove

The Sequoia Tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum) is naturally found only in the Sierra Nevadas of California.  They are the world's largest trees, and the biggest living thing by volume.  The bark is fire resistant, and is highly resistant to decay because of natural chemicals in the wood.  Historically, some have tried to log the trees, but the wood is fibrous and brittle, and a lot of manpower was required to fell a Sequoia.  This resulted in many trees breaking when they were cut, and so Sequoia logging companies often failed miserably.  Keep in mind, there is no way to capture the size of these trees in a picture, but I tried my best!

The General Grant Tree - The Nation's Christmas Tree.
In 1924, Charles E. Lee was inspired by a little girl who said, "what a wonderful Christmas  Tree it would be!" and so, in 1925, on Christmas Day at noon, the tree is dedicated as the nation's Christmas Tree. The ceremony continues yearly.  

Sequioa trees need fire to release seed cones.  Here is a fire scar in one of the trees.   

This next Sequoia, has been a fallen log for many, many years.  It is called The Fallen Monarch, or initially, The Napoleon Log, after the Fall of the Napoleonic Empire.  Over the course of history, this log has been used as a shelter, a home, and two brothers who initially had a logging claim found this log and used it as a hotel, restaurant, and saloon!

Remember those two brothers from above? They built this cabin in  1872.  They lived here until 1878.  The cabin was then used as a station for the US Calvary that patrolled the park until 1913.  Later it was used by the first Park Ranger.  

The Centennial Stump is the remains of a Sequoia which was cut down for demonstration at the World's Fair in Chicago.  However, the reassembled tree was discarded as a California hoax by the fair-goers.  

To show the width of the tree!

Some views of the Canyon

We then stopped at Boyden Cavern, a cave in the National Forest surrounding the Park.  Boyden Cavern bears the name of its original occupant, Putnam Boyden who lived in the cave in the late 1800s until his death.  He used to charge visitors who could climb up to the cave's mouth (Today, a steep five minute walk up a paved path with stairs in places) 10 cents for a tour of the cave.  However, he didn't get many takers due to the steep climb that would be required.  Once, when Boyden was exploring the cave, he slipped and fell into the King's River which carved both the canyon and the cavern.  This fall extinguished his lantern as well as wet his matches, so he couldn't light his lantern again.  To his dismay, he was plunged into total darkness.  On our tour, at the sight of his accident, all the lights are turned off, and we get to experience the total darkness for ourselves.  It is impossible to even see your hand a few inches from your face.  So how did Boyden get out? He crawled through the riverbed on his hands and knees until he reached the mouth of the cave and saw daylight.  Unfortunately, he soon contracted pneumonia and died on his way to the doctors.  

Do you see the ship?

This room is called the bridge room because the bridge was built by the CCC in the 1930s, and has never cracked or otherwise required a repair and is entirely the original.  

Hat's off to the CCC!

The Upside Down City

The Christmas Tree

Grizzly Falls

The deer at our campsite.  

Lone Tree growing out of a rock

We stopped for ice cream at the Kings Canyon Lodge, and the Lodge was also home to this gas pump.

America's Oldest Double Gravity Pumps
1928

I'm working hard to update on our latest adventures, Sequoia and San Francisco.  Now we are headed to the Redwood Forest!

Ciao, 

Amy

All Trails Lead to Yosemite Fall(s) (Yosemite National Park Post)

Before entering Yosemite, we had to drive through the Mono Lake Basin.  The turn-out viewpoint provided a good look of the Lake and the surrounding valley.  Timber met a French Brittany, her French cousin and the originators of the Brittany breed, however, she's an American Brittany.  Also of note, the guard-rail was covered in bumper stickers from all over the world.

Looking down into the Mono Lake Basin

I particularly liked this bumper sticker as a bookworm myself!

Mono Lake is amazing because it has several streams that feed into it, however there is no outlet.  Still, about 45 vertical inches of water is lost due to evaporation every year.  Although none of my pictures show the shore, little rock outcroppings called tufas (which comes from the latin 'tofus' meaning porous stone) exist along side it.  A tufa is calcium carbonate formed by the mixing of waters of different compositions.  

Heading up the mountain pass toward Yosemite.

Human activity in the Yosemite Valley has been recorded for tens of thousands of years.  The Ahwahneechee lived here, and following European settlement in the 1800s, more people came to the valley, but travel was hard by horseback or by stagecoach, so there were few visitors to the valley.  By 1907, when the Yosemite Valley Railroad was completed, the passage between Merced and El Portal eased travel and visitation increased.

This year marks the 150th year of the Yosemite Grant, which was signed by President Lincoln in 1864 amidst the Civil War, protecting the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of the Giant Sequoias.  The Yosemite Grant out land under the care of the state of California, hence starting the California State Park system.  In 1890, the conservationist John Muir sat in talks to convince President Theodore Roosevelt to create the National Park System.


The Yosemite Valley was shaped by glaciation, and was carved out by the two rivers, the Tuolumne and the Merced, which both begin in the Park.  Yosemite is best known for its granite, cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, and giant Sequoias.  The park is home to diverse populations of plants and animals.

Olmstead Point

View of the Lake Above from Olmstead Point

Behind us you can see Half Dome.  Half Dome is one of the more unusual specimens in the park as it looks like half a dome. You might ask what happened to the other half, but simply, there has never been another half.  

Recreation of the birthday binoculars picture

After walking to the lookout point on Olmstead point, with his binoculars, Dad saw people hiking to the neighboring granite structure across the street from where we parked.  So naturally, he wanted to go do that!  Once we got to the top, the view was amazing, and it felt like we were at the top of the world!

The granite on the mountain was at one point polished and smooth, but now, it's chipping off.  

There's Harvey!

Family Selfie! Even Timber got in on it!

Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem.  Plants and animals have adapted to this natural occurrence in their ecosystems.  Historically, the pioneers suppressed these fires, but that did more harm than good as it left dead wood and set the fire up for a much bigger and destructive fire.  Today, the fires are left in the natural parks to allow them to play their role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem unless it poses imminent danger to the people and structures surrounding it.  Sometimes, small controlled fires called prescribed burns are set to regulate the environment.  The fire seen in this picture was caused by a lightning strike and was discovered on July 16.  It is considered to be managed for many reasons, as it poses no threat to systems or infrastructures of the park.  

 Our second day in Yosemite we left the quieter Tioga Pass for the Yosemite Valley portion of the park.  Here we parked in a lot, under a shady tree for Timber and headed off on the shuttle.  The shuttle system was a bit confusing to figure out, as well as the map and signage were unclear on where we needed to go on our hike to see Yosemite Falls.  We ended up going past the stop we wanted and had to go around the entire loop again.  Combined with the fact that we over prepared for the short walk to the Falls, preparing rather for a long trek, you should have seen us on the shuttle we were quite the sight!

Finally we found the path to go see Yosemite Falls.  Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in the United States at 2,425 feet tall.  It is the fifth tallest in the world, the tallest being Salto Angel in Venezuela at 3,212 feet tall.  Yosemite Falls is further classified into Upper Fall (1,430 feet), Middle Cascades (675 feet), and Lower Falls (320 feet). The source of the Falls is the Yosemite Creek, which is fed entirely by snowmelt.  In the spring, 2,400 gallons per second flow over Upper Falls, but in the summer once all the snow melts, it slows drastically.

After viewing the Falls and not wanting to ride the shuttle again and prompted by Mom who had seen that it was a short fifteen minute walk on the Valley Loop trail which connected Yosemite Falls to the Visitor's Center.  However, after walking down the trail for a while, and eating gorp on a rock, we realized we either took a wrong turn or the trail didn't actually connect up with the Visitor's Center.  Either way, we were hopelessly lost.  We then turned around and cut down a path leading to the pasture area for the donkeys.  We were laughing, because through our whole adventure, the only thing we saw on the signs was Yosemite Falls or in some cases just Yosemite Fall, like the sign maker could only spell one thing. 

We could see Upper Falls from our spot outside the Donkey pen. 

Continuing on from the Donkey Pen, we walked through a residential area and eventually found the Visitor's center.  By that time, we had done enough adventuring and wanted to go back to Timber and move on from Yosemite.  

Just four lost people by the Lost Arrow Road sign.  

El Capitan Rock

The Three Brothers

From Tunnel View Point

The Tunnel

After this point, Dad drove down Route 41, which is full of turns and switchbacks, and was also very narrow.  Mom had to go lay down and even Karen and Dad who were in the front felt green.  Poor Timber wasn't fond of it either.  I slept through all the excitement.  

We stopped by a dried fruit and nut store, as well as an ice cream place for some fresh air and of course, some ice cream.  Timber, our fearless leader, introduced us to a couple and their daughter Ada.  We started talking and Bill recommended places to go in Kings Canyon, our next stop.  Side Note: Happy Second Birthday to Ada! (Second Side Note: I originally compiled this post on Friday, but due to technical difficulties never posted, so Happy Belated Birthday Ada!)

On our way towards Kings Canyon, we drove through fruit groves and vineyards.  This happens to be an orange grove.  

We stopped at this fruit stand as well!  I, being a lemon connoisseur, bought a lemon, but have yet to eat it, but when I do, I'll let you know how it was.  The other fruit we bought and have eaten was very good. 

Karen wants me to make sure you know that she has started to post on her blog as well.  Go check it out! Where's Harvey the RV?

We are out of the canyons for a bit, so I will have service to update on our latest adventures!

Ciao, 

Amy