SUNDAYS IN MY CITY--THE GIANT FOREST

Do you know Unknown Mami? She's awesome and she's started a fun Sunday theme inviting you to get out and take pictures of your city to share with the rest of us. Click here for details and her logo and click here to see Unknown Mami's City today. She has initiated this series of posts based on personal travel impressions, a very informal and personal travel log from people all over the world.My friend Joanna, author of a wonderful blog, "The Fifty Factor" that you can check out at this address, put me on this path and I am grateful that she did.

THE GIANT FOREST

This year my husband and I ventured for Christmas into the Sequoia National Park. It is a beautiful region in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, east of San Joaquin Valley or "The Central Valley"--one of the most fertile regions in the US. The gateway to the park is a quaint little town, Three Rivers, situated on the Kaweah river. From there, the road climbs to an altitude of 7,000 feet, going through the forest of giant Sequoia trees and descends on the other side of the mountain. A large part of the park is not accessible by car. Some of the peaks reach above 14,000 feet and can be seen all around from the road.

The real entrance in the park is at the "Four Generals"--a group of Seqoias guarding the road.

It's very hard to talk about the Sequoias. Being among them feels like being in a cathedral, not built by an extraordinary architect, but made out of living things, in the wild. I was so overwhelmed, I found myself whisper in awe, the way I would do in a place of worship, when I feel acutely the supernatural presence of a power much higher than myself.

I have found this description of the Sequoia trees in Wikipedia. I included it here for the technical details. But the incomparable majesty of these trees can not be accurately described in words. The feelings stirred up by being in the presence of these trees can only be experienced by being there. They are the largest and the oldest living beings on the planet and they only grow in this area of the Sierras--Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park, adjacent to each other.

Description

Leaves of Sequoiadendron giganteum
Giant Sequoias are the world's largest trees in terms of total volume (technically, only 7 living Giant Sequoia exceed the 42,500 cubic feet (1,200 m3) of the Lost Monarch Coast Redwood tree; see Largest trees). They grow to an average height of 50–85 m (165–280 ft) and 6–8 m (18–24 ft) in diameter. Record trees have been measured to be 94.8 m (311 ft) in height and 17 m (57 ft) in diameter.[1] The oldest known Giant Sequoia based on ring count is 3,500 years old. Sequoia bark is fibrous, furrowed, and may be 90 cm (3 ft) thick at the base of the columnar trunk. It provides significant fire protection for the trees. The leaves are evergreen, awl-shaped, 3–6 mm long, and arranged spirally on the shoots. The seed cones are 4–7 cm long and mature in 18–20 months, though they typically remain green and closed for up to 20 years; each cone has 30-50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale giving an average of 230 seeds per cone. The seed is dark brown, 4–5 mm long and 1 mm broad, with a 1 mm wide yellow-brown wing along each side. Some seed is shed when the cone scales shrink during hot weather in late summer, but most seeds are liberated when the cone dries out from fire heat and/or insect damage (see Ecology, below).

Giant sequoia cones.
Giant sequoia regenerates by seed. Trees up to about 20 years old may produce stump sprouts subsequent to injury. Giant sequoia of all ages may sprout from the bole when old branches are lost to fire or breakage, but (unlike coast redwood) mature trees do not sprout from cut stumps. Young trees start to bear cones at the age of 12 years.
At any given time, a large tree may be expected to have approximately 11,000 cones. The upper part of the crown of any mature Giant Sequoia invariably produces a greater abundance of cones than its lower portions. A mature giant sequoia has been estimated to disperse from 300,000-400,000 seeds per year. The winged seeds may be carried up to 180 m (600 ft) from the parent tree.
Lower branches die fairly readily from shading, but trees less 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 20–50 m, but solitary trees will retain low branches.

This is how the home of the Giant Forest looks from the distance.