Sequoia National Park General’s Highway

I spent the day driving through Sequoia National Park on General’s Highway. It’s a beautiful drive but the road is nothing but switch backs. The upper elevations still have about 6 feet of snow that has been cleared away and the road is open. There is no way for me to put into words the magnificence of the Giant Sequoias. Their red bark and green tops are beautiful against the white snow. Many of these trees have been growing for over 2,500 years. Sequoias are the largest trees in the world by volume while Red Woods are the largest trees in the world by height. Some Sequoias have a diameter of 20 feet. The ranger said that the first Sequoia was taken down in 1852 by mining and timber companies. Their saws were only 8 feet long, so they drilled wholes into the trees and pushed explosives into the holes and set them off. When the tree fell it literally exploded and the outside of the flew like shrapnel. Most of the outside is very light and flies apart easily. He handed me a piece that was about the size of a football. I was expecting it to be fairly heavy, but it only weighed a couple of ounces. The ranger told us that the closest relative to the Sequoia and Redwood is the Cypress found in the southeast United States. The oldest fossilized Sequoia pine cone was found in Yellowstone National Park. The tree used to be all over the western United States, but climate change and earth upheaval has caused the Sequoias in other parts of the country to disappear.