Ancient trees a big draw for tourists, daytrippers
By James Damschroder
The Union Democrat
Sonora, California
Friday, June 27
Calaveras and Tuolumne counties are surrounded by giants.
Giant sequoias — the largest living organisms, rising up to 325 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter, and some dating back to before the Roman Republic — are scattered across a swath of the Western Sierra Nevada. Four groves exist in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.
The Merced and Tuolumne groves are just within Yosemite's Big Oak Flat entrance, and Big Trees State Park's North and South groves tower four miles east of Arnold on Highway 4.
Big Trees North Grove, where giant sequoias were discovered, is a flat one-and-a-half mile hike. The trail is well-marked by signs explaining the trees and their history.
The South Grove is a three-and-a-half to five mile hike, depending on the route, with some moderate climbs.
"The grove is set in its primeval condition, "said Wendy Harrison, a Big Trees State Park interpreter, of the South Grove. "The payoff is the Agassiz Tree, the giant among giants in Big Trees, near the end of the trail," Harrison said.
The Merced Grove is a uncrowded trail leading to a cluster of about 20 trees. It's a four-mile round-trip hike off Big Oak Flat Road, four-and-half miles north of the Big Oak Flat Yosemite entrance on Highway 120.
The Tuolumne Grove, located at the intersection of Big Oak Flat and Tioga roads, is well marked with explanations of the trees' awe-inspiring virtues. The hike is about three miles, with a steep drop down to the cluster of 25 trees.
"They're a lot less known than the Mariposa Grove (Yosemite's largest grove located near Yosemite's south entrance)," said Scott Gediman, Yosemite Park spokesperson.
Gediman said the Tuolumne Grove is beautiful in the spring because it's lush with dogwoods and ferns, while the Merced Grove is the least traveled.
"You can have it all to yourself sometimes," Gediman said.
These giants of the forest attract people from all over the globe. "I've never seen them before," said Lena Jensen, from Denmark, who was hiking around the Merced Grove. "They're amazing."
"They're really cool," said Chris Heid, of Washington, as he led his 5-year-old son, around the grove for the first time, whose eyes were wide with disbelief.
The giant sequoia has been threatened by human greed and naivety since their discovery in Big Trees State Park in 1852. A man named Augustus Dowd was tracking a wounded grizzly bear through unfamiliar forest when he ran upon a massive sequoia, now dubbed the Discovery Tree.
Soon after, loggers cut down the Discovery Tree, which would have been the largest tree in the North Grove. Sections of its bark and a portion of its trunk were shipped to San Francisco to be put on display. The tree's stump now sits at the beginning of the North Grove loop.
Another tree called the Mother of the Forest in the North Grove, sits black and decrepit after its bark was stripped and reassembled for a display on the East Coast.
In total, loggers cut down about 34 percent of the world's giant sequoias.
More recently, but unknowingly, humans have hurt the trees' reproduction cycles because of fire protection practices.
"Fire opens up areas for seeds to germinate," Harrison, of Big Trees, said. "The seeds are minute. They look like a flake of oatmeal, and they need to immediately get access to soil or they'll die."
In the 1970s, Big Trees and the National Park Service began controlled burns of its groves to help the reproduction cycle.
Young Sequoias are starting to flourish in Big Trees again, Harrison said.
"My guitar teacher told me their trunks were as big as a room," Elliot Wilde, 15, of Texas, said, while walking around the North Grove. "Now, I believe him."