TuzigootJournal: Sequoia National Park

We got to the Sequoia National Park entrance about 430 on Tuesday. Nice young Ranger assured us we had plenty of time to drive through the Park before dark, thanks to DST. Ranger asked if we had been there before. I said I had about 30 years ago. Ranger said, Wow, I guess you were a baby then. I said, Maybe so, but I was driving. Ranger said, Wow, you were a really young driver! Anyhow, our plan was to enter SW corner of park, then exit it at NW corner and go on to Fresno for the night.

Our main goal was the Giant Forest and in particular the world's largest tree (in volume) named the General Sherman. Here's a mountain scene as you ascend into the park. It's 14 miles or so of steep, winding road to get to the Giant Forest.

Some tree scenes:

As you can see, quite a bit of snow at this level.

Here are some General Sherman shots: It's quite an awesome tree.

That's me at the right.

The Gen. Sherman is an estimated 2200 years old. It's 275 ft. tall and weighs an estimated 1385 tons. By way of contrast, the tallest Coastal Redwood trees are 100 ft. taller. They don't have the branches, though, that the Sequoias have, so do not have as much weight or volume. We recall Kauri trees in NZ as being called the world's largest (and I found a website with that claim). The Kauri have a trunk as large at the base as a Sequoia, but they don't taper so much and they're not as tall. This website lists the General Sherman as the world's largest tree (trunk volume of 1487 cubic meters) and the Tane Mahuta Kauri tree in NZ, which we saw, as the fourth largest (244.5 cubic meters). That's a big difference and I'm not sure I believe it. Maybe the Sherman volume includes branch volumes.

Just beyond the Giant Forest, where the road starts down toward the NW corner of the park, the road was barricaded. Road Closed. So, we retraced our path. Different views, though, so it wasn't at all a repeat trip. Nice young Ranger was still on duty at the gate and he was interested to hear the road was closed. Must have been an avalanche, he surmised. Strange they hadn't told him. Anyhow, by the time we got down it was nearly dark and we were still 80 miles from Fresno, so we decided to stop for the night in a Comfort Inn just outside the Park at Three Rivers. Wi-Fi and waffle-maker in the breakfast area. What more could you ask for? Well, here's the hill across the road from the Inn.