Giants

Redbud Trees cover the mountain slopes

We thought we were doing this trip to avoid this stuff!!!

This one's a baby ....... not much more than 2,000 years old


We headed back into the Sierra Nevada Mountains in order to see Sequoia National Park. The drive commenced on a warm, sunny morning in the San Joaquin Valley farm lands, at about 17°C and ended 2 hours later at 6,500 feet, at -3°C and, in 7 inches of fresh snow. The road into the park, up to the giant trees was restricted to vehicles with 4 wheel drive and/or chains only. Altitude is latitude!!!!

Our first hour, heading west, continued through uninterrupted factory farm land, fertile and FLAT. The farms are imposing and highly automated; employing a scale of food production unlike anything we have seen except in southern California and Arizona. Once we started climbing, the mountain meadows exploded in colour, with the Redbud Trees and Mountain Lupin Bushes taking centre stage, turning some of the mountain slopes into amazing red and violet inclines. Then we hit the snow!! Visibility dropped to zero and, we worried that we might not be able to see the tree-tops. But, as we kept climbing it almost looked like we would break into sunshine.

The giant Sequoias must be seen to be appreciated. The “General Sherman” tree is the largest living thing on earth!!! It is a 2,300 – 2,700 year old Sequoia with a height of 275 feet and a trunk circumference of 103 feet. The volume of the wood in the tree is estimated to be 52,500 cubic feet. That’s a lot of firewood!!! Redwoods can grow taller but, they cannot equal the mass of the Sequoias. And, it takes the heat of forest fires to open the female cones in order to release the seeds. Forest fire repression almost doomed the giants until scientists figured it out. Now, our buddies at the National Park Service actually start fires in the Sequoia forests in order to ensure propagation.