California, Here We Come – Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Me in a tree

Our next stop was Sequoia National Park and its sister park, Kings Canyon National Park. I was able to reserve a camping spot here in advance (Dorst Creek Campground, site #115, Loop E), but we were a bit disappointed when we arrived. The campground was lovely, but our spot not so much. It was a slim pad perched on a hill with a walk through a field of rather high grass cut by a narrow bumpy trail to the restroom. There was hardly room for our car and not much room to to hang around with no privacy. No big deal, we just didn’t spend much time at the site, partially because it wasn’t really conducive to staying around and partially because this was the one place on our trip where we had some rain. Not a lot, but enough to restrict us a bit.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

The signs do double duty – Park on one side, boundary forests on the other

Established in 1890, Sequoia National Park contains the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet (with all our 14ers, Colorado failed to snag the highest), but is best known for its giant sequoia trees. Sequoia’s Giant Forest contains five of the ten largest trees in the world, including the largest, the General Sherman tree.

General Sherman Tree

Kings Canyon National Park was originally established in 1890 as General Grant National Park and then greatly expanded and renamed to Kings Canyon National Park in 1940. Since the Parks are administered as one and because they intertwine, I will just talk about them as generally one entity. Almost entirely wilderness, Kings Canyon is the least visited of the major Sierra Nevada Parks, with just under 700,000 visitors in 2017 compared to 1.3 million visitors at Sequoia and more than 4 million at Yosemite.

We visited the Giant Forest, which does “contain” trees much as the Mariposa Grove at Yosemite does …

Many trees are protected by railings

But, we also visited some trees that were not restricted by fences and guard rails. In general, access to uncrowded vistas of these giant trees is much better.

Mixed grove with no rails

Flora and Fauna

Over 1,200 species of plants occur in Kings Canyon and Sequoia Parks, representing about 20 percent of all plant species in California.

Green, leafy waterfall near Crystal Cave

The lower elevations of Sequoia contain the only National Park Service-protected California Foothills ecosystem, consisting of blue oaks, foothills chaparral, grasslands, yucca plants and steep, mild river valleys. 

The lower elevations shelter many birds and animals, including Bobcats, Foxes, Squirrels, Rattlesnakes and Mule Deer as well as more reclusive Mountain Lions and Pacific Fishers. 

A juvenile Acorn Woodpecker being fed by Mom

We didn’t spend much time at the lower elevation, basically just driving through. 

We didn’t see much – except a beautiful pair of clown-like Acorn Woodpeckers that appeared to be a juvenile and its mother, the former begging the latter for food.

Such a pretty – and funny-looking – bird

At higher elevations in the front country of Sequoia and Kings Canyon, between 5,500 and 9,000 feet, the forest changes to Ponderosa, Jeffrey, sugar and lodgepole pines; white and red fir ...

Sugar Pine Cones – ready to eat on the left and eaten on the right

 ... and, of course, the giant sequoias ... 

Those trees!!!

This is where we camped and spend much of our time. Animals here include Coyote, Badger, Beaver, Muskrat, Mountain Lions, Mule Deer, Douglas Squirrels and Black Bears. Bighorn Sheep live in Kings Canyon and there are plans to reintroduce them to Sequoia. We didn't see many animals. But, we did see a couple of Black Bears – one sleeping in the Giant Forest (with lots of people watching it) ...

Sleeping Bear (from the white by its ear, it appears tagged)

... and one in Kings Canyon that scampered away when we tried to photograph it ...

Departing Bear

We also saw a tiny, tiny Mule Deer fawn ...

Departing Fawn

Black Bear

In the high alpine country, plant communities are mostly meadows, herbs and shrubs with some scattered groves of foxtail pine and stunted whitebark pine. 

Talus slopes are home to small mammals such as Pikas and Yellow-Bellied Marmots. Larger animals such as Bears may venture into the alpine zone in search of food (a behavior now exacerbated by improper disposal of waste by campers), but do not winter there.

As I mentioned, the Park was expanded several times over the decades to its present size. The most recent was in 1978, when grassroots efforts spearheaded by the Sierra Club fought off attempts by the Walt Disney Corporation to purchase a high-alpine former mining site south of the park to build a ski resort. 

This site, known as Mineral King, was annexed to the Park and is the highest elevation developed site within the park. We didn’t go there this time, but I have driven the narrow winding road to this beautiful site several times in the past and I once did a very nice hike there.

Mineral King, 2003

Geology

Sequoia and Kings Canyon are located in California'a Sierra Neva Mountains, a "young" mountain range, probably not more than 10 million years old. During this time, at least four ice ages covered the mountains in ice and then carved deep valleys and craggy peaks. Most of the mountains and canyons in the Sierra Nevada are composed of granitic rocks, including granite, diorite and monzonite, that formed when molten rock cooled far beneath the surface of the earth. These rocks have a speckled salt-and-pepper appearance because they contain various minerals including quartz, feldspars and micas.

Kings Canyon, 2013

The glacial valleys have flat floors and exposed granite cliffs and domes many thousands of feet high, similar in form to the more famous Yosemite Valley. The term "yosemite" was used in the 19th century by John Muir to describe these valleys before they were widely known by their own names.

Moro Rock

Kings Canyon is characterized by some of the steepest vertical relief in North America, with numerous peaks over 14,000 feet on the Sierra Crest along the park's eastern border, falling to 4,500 feet in the valley floor of Cedar Grove just ten miles to the west.

Crystal Cave

Stalactites

The Parks contain more than 270 known caves, including Lilburn Cave, which is California's longest cave with nearly 17 miles of surveyed passages. The only commercial cave open to park visitors is Crystal Cave, the park's second-longest cave at over 3.4 miles. 

I was surprised how small these largest caves were. I mean, compare that to Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, which has more than 400 miles of surveyed passages!

Park caves, like most caves in the Sierra Nevada, are mostly "solutional" caves dissolved from marble.

Crystal cave ceiling

Crystal Cave has nice, if small, formations

We took a guided tour of Crystal Cave, which included a steep half-mile hike down (and then back up is some very, very muggy weather). 

Compared to other caves I have visited, Crystal Cave was not impressive. Pretty, but small. 

And, the tour guide spent more time telling us not to touch the cave formations (I think we all got it the first time) than educating us about the cave. 

Cave entrance

It has no truly large chambers and, therefore, no giant formations. I have visited lots of caves and am, unfortunately, jaded. I will skip it next time. Interestingly, I thought we were visiting a cave we had toured in 1987, but now I believe that was Boyden Cave in Kings Canyon that just reopened this year after being closed after a forest fire in 2015.

Like every cave we have visited in the past 15 years, we had to make sure we were not wearing clothes or shoes we had worn in other caves and we had to walk through a tray of disinfectant. This is to protect against the terrible white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease killing bats in North America. Likely introduced from Europe, WNS was first discovered in the U.S. in 2006 and has spread to most of the United States and five Canadian provinces, leaving millions of bats dead. Scientists predict WNS will eventually cause some regional extinction of bat species, including the Little Brown Bat, the Indiana Bat and the Northern Long-Eared Bat.

Bats with white-nose syndrome; Photo: NPS

It is called "white-nose syndrome" because of the visible white fungal growth on infected bats' muzzles and wings. The fungus infects bats during hibernation, when the bats reduce their metabolic rate and lower their body temperature to save energy over winter. Hibernating bats affected by WNS wake up to scratch their itchy noses and, confused by awakening, often fly off to search for food that is not yet available, using up fat reserves and causing starvation before spring arrives.

Bats can pick up WNS from physical contact with infected bats or from the surfaces of a cave or mine where they hibernate. Humans can spread the fungus from one cave/mine to another by accidentally carrying the fungus on shoes, clothing or gear. On this trip, we learned that washing and drying clothes does not remove the fungus and you should not wear or carry anything into a cave that you have worn in another cave in the past TEN years. TEN YEARS! They do disinfect shoes, but not clothes or packs. WOW!

The world's largest trees

Giant Sequoias

Now, let’s talk a bit about giant sequoias, also known as giant redwood, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, Wellingtonia or simply "big tree." 

The sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron, the giant sequoia is one of three species of coniferous trees known as redwoods (the others are the coast redwood and the dawn redwood). The trees’ name honors Sequoyah (1767-1843), the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. Of course, giant sequoias are found far from Sequoyah's homes in Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma. 

The most massive trees on Earth, giant sequoias occur naturally only in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They grow to an average height of 165 to 280 feet, with trunk diameters ranging from 20 to 26 feet. Record heights have reached 311 feet and record circumferences have topped 28.9 feet.

Scott touching sequoia bark

These trees are also among the oldest living organisms on Earth; the oldest known giant sequoia is 3,500 years old.

The tree’s fibrous, furrowed bark may be three feet thick at the base of the columnar trunk. As giant as the trees are, their cones are tiny – about two inches long with more than 200 seeds per cone. Some seeds shed when the cone scales shrink during hot weather in late summer, but most are liberated by insect damage or when the cone dries from the heat of fire. Young trees start to bear cones after 12 years. A large tree may have as many as 11,000 cones. 

Cone production is greatest in the upper portion of the canopy. A mature giant sequoia disperses an estimated 300-400 thousand seeds annually. The winged seeds may fly as far as 590 feet from the parent tree.

Mixed in with other trees

Lower branches die readily from being shaded, but trees younger than 100 years old retain most of their dead branches. 

Trunks of mature trees in groves are generally free of branches to a height of 70 to 160 feet, but solitary trees retain lower branches.

Giant sequoias occur in scattered groves, with a total of 68 groves comprising a total area of only 35,620 acres. Nowhere does it grow in pure stands, although in a few small areas, stands do approach a pure condition. 

The giant sequoia is usually found in a humid climate characterized by dry summers and snowy winters. Most groves are on granitic-based residual and alluvial soils. The elevation of the giant sequoia groves generally ranges from 4,600 to 6,600 feet in the northern part of its range and from 5,580 to 7,050 feet to the south. 

Giant sequoias generally occur on the south-facing sides of northern mountains, and on the northern faces of more southerly slopes. They are often concentrated near streams because adult trees require a lot of water. Water from the roots can be pushed up only a few feet by osmotic pressure but can reach extreme heights through capillary action. Sequoias supplement water from the soil with fog, taken up through air roots.

Giant sequoias

They have difficulty reproducing in their original habitat and very rarely reproduce in cultivation because the seeds grow successfully only in full sun and mineral-rich soils free from competing vegetation. Still, the giant sequoia is a very popular ornamental tree and is cultivated in most of western and southern Europe, the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, the southern United States, southeast Australia, New Zealand and central-southern Chile. It is also grown, though less successfully, in parts of eastern North America.

Grant Grove

Giant sequoias have been undergoing a gradual decline in density since European settlement. The tree does not need high levels of reproduction to maintain present population levels. But, few current groves have sufficient young trees to maintain enough mature trees for the future.

Although the seeds can germinate in moist needle humus in the spring, the seedlings usually die when the summer weather gets dry.

These trees were widely distributed in prehistoric times and were reasonably common in North American and Eurasian coniferous forests until greatly reduced by the last Ice Age. Fossil specimens have been found in North America and Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

Thick, fibrous bark

Giant sequoias are in many ways adapted to forest fires. Their bark is unusually fire resistant, and their cones normally open immediately after a fire. 

They even require periodic wildfire to clear competing vegetation before successful regeneration can occur. 

Without fire, shade-loving species will crowd out young sequoia seedlings, and sequoia seeds will not germinate. 

Fires also bring hot air high into the canopy via convection, which in turn dries and opens the cones. The subsequent release of large quantities of seeds coincides with the optimal postfire seedbed conditions. Loose ground ash may also act as a cover to protect the fallen seeds from ultraviolet radiation damage.

Firefighter working in a grove; Photo: WildfireToday.com

Due to fire suppression efforts and livestock grazing during the early and mid 20th century, low-intensity fires no longer occurred naturally in many groves, and still do not occur in some groves today. This leads to ground fuel build-up and the dense growth of fire-sensitive white fir, which increases the risk of more intense fires that can use the firs as ladders to threaten mature giant sequoia crowns. By the 1960s it became apparent that this was interfering with the reproductive cycle of the park's sequoias. 

Fire-damaged tree

In 1963, scientists deliberately set fire to part of the Redwood Mountain Grove, the first fire in any of the Park's giant sequoia groves for 75 years. 

Thousands of new sequoia seedlings germinated. 

The success of the experiment led to the establishment of the park's first long-term prescribed burn program in 1972.

Current policies also allow natural fires to burn. One of these untamed burns severely damaged the second-largest tree in the world, the Washington tree, in September 2003, 45 days after the fire started. This damage made it unable to withstand the snowstorm of January 2005, leading to the collapse of over half the trunk.

Beetles open the cones

In addition to fire, two animals also assist seed release. The Douglas Squirrel gnaws on the fleshy green scales of younger cones, releasing seeds. A type of longhorn beetle lays eggs on the cones, into which the larvae then bore holes. Cones damaged by the beetles in the summer slowly open over the next several months. Many cones, particularly higher in the crowns, may need to be partially dried by beetle damage before fire can fully open them. 

Wood from mature giant sequoias is highly resistant to decay, but because it is fibrous and brittle, it is generally unsuitable for construction. 

Downed Sequoia

From the 1880s through the 1920s, logging took place in many groves in spite of marginal commercial returns. Due to their weight and brittleness, trees would often shatter when they hit the ground, wasting much of the wood. Loggers attempted to cushion the impact by digging trenches and filling them with branches. Still, as little as 50 percent of the timber is estimated to have made it from groves to the mill. The wood was used mainly for shingles and fence posts, or even for matchsticks.

Early loggers; Photo: Calaveras Enterprise

Pictures of the once majestic trees broken and abandoned in formerly pristine groves, and the thought of the giants put to such modest use, spurred the public outcry that caused most of the groves to be preserved as protected land. As late as the 1980s, some immature trees were logged in Sequoia National Forest, publicity of which helped lead to the creation of Giant Sequoia National Monument.

The Tunnel Tree

A rough trunk

The wood from immature trees is less brittle, with recent tests on young plantation-grown trees showing it similar to coast redwood wood quality. This is creating interest in cultivating giant sequoias as a high-yielding timber crop tree, both in California and in parts of western Europe, where it may grow more efficiently than coast redwoods. 

In the northwest US, some entrepreneurs have also begun growing giant sequoias for Christmas trees. Besides these attempts at tree farming, the principal economic uses for giant sequoia today are tourism and horticulture.

As I mentioned, the Giant Forest in Sequoia is home to the General Sherman, the world's largest tree, measured by volume. It stands 275 feet tall and is over 36 feet in diameter at the base and 17.5 feet in diameter 60 feet above the base.

The General Sherman Tree is popular

Kings Canyon is home to the Grant Grove, which features the General Grant (the second largest tree in the world, measured by trunk volume) and Cedar Grove.

Kings Canyon

Kings Canyon is a rugged glacier-carved valley more than a mile deep. We had planned to drive the long – and gorgeous – road through Kings Canyon, but it started to rain as we entered the Canyon. 

A sudden rainstorm

Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But, back when I visited in 2003, I drove through when a cold rain dropped the air temperature from 107 to 67 °F – and, in the process peeled a giant chunk of rock off a cliff right after I drove past it. We saw some falling rocks this time and decided not to risk it. 

Close call in 2003

We did make it far enough in, however, to photograph the mouth of the valley and a lovely rainbow ... 

Kings Canyon 

... and to visit an old, but still operating, gas station with an antique gas pump.

Old pumps; Photo: Scott Stevens

Although most of the Park is now designated wilderness, humans significantly modified the ecology of the area ever since Native American times. To clear areas for hunting game and to encourage the germination of certain plants, Native Americans set controlled burns in areas of overgrown brush and grass.

Summer livestock grazing, particularly sheep, caused major damage to the Park in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

When ranchers drove their herds up into the Sierra Nevada to escape the drought and heat of the San Joaquin Valley, meadows were trampled, leading to increased erosion and watershed degradation. 

Grizzly Bears and Wolves that preyed on livestock were shot, trapped and poisoned in large numbers, extirpating them from the Sierra by the early 1900s. The last California Grizzly Bear was killed in Sequoia in 1922.

Even though it is extinct in California, the Grizzly Bear appears on the state flag

The decline of natural predators in the early 1900s led to a huge spike in the deer population, which further rose due to Park visitors feeding them. Ultimately, this led to overgrazing and the vegetation understory was nearly eliminated in large areas of the Park. When the Park was expanded in 1940, the Park Service began shooting deer in an effort to reduce the size of the herd. 

Mule Deer in the woods

Although the culling reduced deer numbers to a more ecologically stable level, the program was criticized for its reliance on brute force rather than more "hands-off" methods, such as re-introducing predators. Today, the only stock allowed in the Park are pack horses and mules, which are only permitted in certain areas along major trails, and usually not early in the season in order to protect meadows in the spring while they are wet and soft.

Humans in Sequoia and Kings Canyon

Early sign; Photo: NPS

People have inhabited the area for about 6,000-7,000 years. Sequoia was home to the Monachee (Western Mono), who lived mainly in the Foothills region. In the summer, they stayed at higher elevations, including in the Giant Forest, and traveled over high mountain passes to trade with tribes to the east.

Thunderbird Chief, Col. White

The Owens Valley Paiute peoples (also known as the Eastern Monos) visited Kings Canyon from their homeland east of the Sierra Nevada, around Mono Lake. The Paiute mainly used acorns, found in lower elevations of the park, for food, as well as Deer and other small animals. The Yokuts, who lived in the Central Valley, also ventured into the mountains during summer to collect plants, hunt game and trade. 

Because of the inhospitable winter climate, Native Americans did not establish permanent villages in the high country.

The early Spanish exploration of California largely bypassed the Parks. In 1805, Gabriel Moraga led an expedition through the Central Valley and crossed what is now the Kings River, bestowing the name Rio de los Santo Reyes (River of the Holy Kings) on the stream.

The first non-native people to venture into what is today considered the Kings Canyon backcountry or high country were likely John C. Fremont's party in 1844, which attempted to cross the Sierra Nevada by way of the Kings River. However, a snowstorm impeded their progress and they were forced to retreat to the Central Valley. In 1858, the J.H. Johnson party successfully crossed the Sierra via the route Fremont had intended to find.

Fur trappers also visited the area in the 1820s, but most likely did not venture into the high country since beaver were only present at lower elevations. They were followed by prospectors during the California Gold Rush, which began in 1848. However, not much gold, nor other minerals, were discovered in this area.

California Gold Rush; Photo: History.com

When the first European settlers arrived, smallpox had already spread to the region, decimating Native American populations.

The first European settler to homestead in Sequoia was Hale Tharp, who built a home in a hollowed-out sequoia log in the Giant Grove. Tharp grazed cattle and led early battles against logging.

Hale Tharp's cabin; Photo: NPS

The first scientific expedition to the area was the 1864 Whitney Survey, conducted by the Geological Survey of California. After failed attempts to summit Mount Whitney, the survey party descended into the Kings Canyon via Native American paths where "they remarked its resemblance to the Yosemite and were impressed by the enormous height of its cliffs."

In the 1880s, white settlers logged Sequoias, felling thousands of trees before logging operations ceased when the Park was created.

Giant Sequoia

For many years the primary way for tourists to reach General Grant National Park was the Stephens Grade, a rough wagon road over which a stagecoach operated beginning in the early 1900s. Initially, the U.S. Army had to station troops to protect the Parks from illegal grazing and hunting. Although these eventually ceased to be a problem, the rising number of visitors created its own sanitation and waste issues. In the summer of 1907 about 1,100 people visited the Park. 

Current Park footprint

A new road reached the General Grant National Park by 1913; that summer, the Park saw almost 2,800 tourists. In 1914 the park was turned over from military to civilian control (although the National Park Service was not formally established until 1916). In 1935, the Generals Highway was completed connecting Sequoia and General Grant National Parks. In 1939, State Route 180 from Grant Grove to Kings Canyon was finally completed after ten years of construction, finally allowing large numbers of tourists to visit Cedar Grove for the first time.

The Parks are managed together

In the early years, staff and expertise were often loaned from Sequoia National Park to Kings Canyon National Park. 

In 1943, the administrations of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks were combined as a cost-saving measure due to World War II. 

It worked so well that, after the war, the arrangement was preserved. Today, the two parks are still managed as one.

Many attempts were made from the 1940s to 1960s to build dams in Kings Canyon to supply water to Los Angeles, but all attempts failed. In1984, Congress designated more than 85 percent of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as wilderness, and, in 1987, the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River were designated Wild and Scenic.

The Kings River

Trip date: July 19-August 2, 2019