Sequoias

As the sign says, we were entering a grove of giant sequoias. These giant trees are the largest living things on earth by volume. The giant redwoods grow taller and the bristle cone pines live longer, but these are the largest. They get up to 300 feet tall, 30 feet around, 6,100 tons in weight, and 3,000 years in age!! Barks on the oldest trees can be as much as two feet thick. The main reason they die is by falling over because of their enormous weight.

The hike to the sequoia grove was two miles round trip. It also had a 400 foot elevation drop in one mile. This is the equivalent of walking down 40 flights of stairs. Of course the second mile of the hike was a 400 foot elevation gain which is the equivalent of CLIMBING 40 flights of stairs. There was plenty of huffing and puffing going on........

In years past this was a popular entrance to the park because of the novelty of driving through this tree trunk. Now it is here for a great photo op!

I wanted a picture of this tree because you can see the burned part. Well you can if you are there, it doesn't show up very well in this picture. The hollowed out part is all burnt and demonstrates their ability to survive the intense heat of forest fires.

I don't have any clue what type of flower this is but they were plentiful in the park. They actually were blooming on trees rather than on short plants. I kind of think they look sort of like a dogwood but don't really know. If anyone recognizes these, I would appreciate a comment letting me know what it is.

Here are a few more pictures of our roadtrip.