Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks

While staying in Visalia, CA we drove an hour to these two parks. Although they have separate names, they are actually one park and one can drive from one to the other. Located in the Sierra Nevada mountains in central CA, they are home to the giant Sequoia trees. Two of them, General Sherman and General Grant, are the two largest trees on earth. It is estimated that they are dispersisng seeds. These trees, in addition to being fire tolerant are also impervious to insects and disease. In fact,  most of them die from falling over due to a relatively shallow root system.

2 large sequoias

Stephen inside a dead sequoia

King's Canyon

2,200 years old! What makes them so majestic is their incredible width. While they are quite tall, the CA Redwood is taller. Most of them have scars from fires years past. The fires help the tree by forcing the cones, many of which are attached to the trees for 20 years,  (the size of a chicken's egg) open and

When viewing them, I felt like I was on another planet, for I had never seen any other tree that compared to them. They are quite massive, even in their upper structure. They grow amongst other conifers such as the redwood and the sugar maple, but they do exist in groves. They are easily identified by their red bark and size.

King's Canyon, in addition to Sequoia, also has sequoia groves. It is also one of the steepest canyons in the US. You can travel from the top of the canyon to the bottom, where you find the rapidly flowing South fork of the King's river. It is quite beautiful. It is also remarkable given the drought that is obvious throughout the countryside.

One other thing to mention--in this arid climate, you see miles of citrus, olive, and nut trees in the valleys below the Sierra Madres. I wonder how the farmers are able to pay to irrigate these fields given the current draught status?