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Establishment
Sequoia is the second-oldest national park in the United States. It was established on 25 Sep 1890 to protect the Big Trees in Giant Forest, including the General Sherman Tree, the world's largest living thing. Sequoia also contains the Mineral King Valley and Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the U.S. outside of Alaska.
A small portion of what is now Kings Canyon was originally set aside in 1890 as General Grant National Park. In 1940, General Grant was absorbed into the new and larger Kings Canyon National Park which eventually grew to include the South Fork of the Kings River and 456,552 acres of backcountry wilderness. Managed as one park, together Sequoia and Kings Canyon total over 863,700 acres.
People first started coming to the sequoia forests in large numbers shortly after the end of the Civil War. The General Grant Tree was discovered in 1862 by Joseph Hardin Thomas and named in 1867 by Lucretia Baker. Five years later, on 01 March 1872, Ulysses Grant, now president of the United States, signed the bill designating Yellowstone as the world's first national park. The area around the Grant Grove of giant sequoias was set aside in 1890 as General Grant National Park. (Yosemite National Park was created in the same piece of legislation.) In 1940, General Grant was included in the newly created Kings Canyon National Park.
Size and Visitation
Gross Area Acres - 864,411
Total Recreation Visits for 2001 - 1,419,075
Visitation is heaviest in the summer, with August being the busiest month. Visitation is lightest in the winter.
Captain Charles Young, Military Superintendent, Sequoia National Park, 1903
by Wm. C. Tweed
When the new military superintendent for the summer of 1903 arrived in Sequoia National Park he had already faced many challenges. Born in Kentucky during the Civil War, Charles Young had early set himself a course that took him to places where a black man was not often welcome. He was the first black to graduate from the white high school in Ripley, Ohio, and through competitive examination he won an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point in 1884. He went on to graduate with his commission, only the third black man to do so. Later he would remark that the worst he could wish for an enemy would be to make him a black man and send him to West Point.
His military career progressed in the cavalry, and he saw action in Cuba during the Spanish-America War. In 1903, he was serving as a Captain in the Cavalry commanding a segregated black company at the Presidio of San Francisco when he received orders to take his troops to Sequoia National Park for the summer.
In May, 1903, Sequoia National Park was already thirteen years old but still under-developed and hard to visit. Since 1891, the management and development of the park had been the responsibility of the US Army, but owing to a lack of Congressional funding almost nothing had been done. The biggest lack in the park was an adequate wagon road to the Giant Forest, the home of the world's largest trees. Army work on a road had begun in the summer of 1900, but progress had lagged. In three summers barely five miles of road had been constructed.
Army administration of the early national parks usually took the form of a military officer sent to the park for the summer and authorized by the Department of the Interior to function as "Acting Superintendent". These assignments usually changed each year, part of the reason Army accomplishments in the parks were so limited. In its first dozen years, Sequoia National Park never had a military superintendent who worked in the park more than two consecutive seasons.
Young and his troopers arrived in Sequoia after a 16-day ride to find that their major assignment would be the extension of the wagon road. Hoping to break the sluggish pattern of previous military administrations, Young poured his considerable energies into the project, and dirt and rock began to fly. By mid-August wagons were entering the mountain-top forest for the first time. Still not content, Young kept his crews working and soon extended the road to the base of the famous Moro Rock. During the summer of 1903, Young and his troops built as much road as the combined results of the three previous summers.
Young only served in Sequoia National Park for one summer. In 1904 he was posted as military attach� in Haiti. He later served in the same capacity in Liberia. During the Pershing expedition in Mexico in 1916, Young again saw active combat. At the beginning of the First World War, Young, by then retired, applied for a command. When he was refused on account of his health he protested and rode 500 miles on horseback from Ohio to Washington, DC, to prove his fitness for duty. His demonstration succeeded and he returned to active duty as a full colonel. He died in 1923 while on an official mission to Africa and was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery with full honors.
Although Colonel Charles Young only served one season as Acting Superintendent of Sequoia National Park, he has not been forgotten. The energy and dignity he brought to his national park assignment left a strong imprint. His roads, much improved in later times, are still in use today, having served millions of park visitors for more than eighty years. And the example he set - a determined black man overcoming the prejudices of society - remains an inspiration to anyone who faces life's challenges head-on.
Walter Fry: A Man of Distinction
by Malinee Crapsey
(This article first appeared in the Summer 1994 edition of The Sequoia Bark)
"When I first met Judge Fry, under his own grand old trees, I knew that I was meeting a man of rare distinction..."
And this from Colonel John White, a man of no small distinction himself who was superintendent and guiding force of these parks for 25 years. The object of his esteem, Walter Fry, not only knew these mountains and their famous trees intimately, but significantly influenced their fate.
In 1888 Walter Fry came to know the sequoias as a logger, having left hardship in the Midwest for a new life in the Sierra. After spending five days with a team of five men sawing a single sequoia, he counted the growth rings on the fallen giant. The answer shocked him into changing careers - in just a few days they had ended 3266 years of growth.
Two years later a petition was circulating, calling for a new national park to protect the sequoias. The third signature was Walter Fry's.
Fry moved his family from the San Joaquin Valley to Three Rivers after the park was created in 1890, making it easier to pursue his interest in this beautiful area. Although the military ran the park then, in 1901 civilian Fry was hired as road foreman. In 1905 he became a park ranger.
By 1910 Fry was Chief Ranger, managing the parks for the military superintendents that were appointed to supervise each summer. When the Army gave up caretaking the parks in 1914, the choice for civilian superintendent was a clear one. Fry went on to lead the parks through challenging times, a world war and the creation of the National Park Service.
When Col. White became superintendent in 1920, Fry shifted jobs again, becoming U.S. Commissioner, or federal judge, in the parks. White recognized his worth immediately: "It would be almost impossible to overstate the affection and esteem in which Judge Fry is held by both Park employees and visitors. He has been able to enforce park regulations with such sympathetic insight into the needs of visitors and residents that the enforcement has won friends for the Park Service."
It was in 1922 that Fry got involved with what may have been his most enduring contribution, the first Nature Guide Service for the public.
Again, the obvious leader for the program was the man who had spent countless hours outdoors, observing the intricacies of life here. Now he influenced the park by influencing visitors, passing on his deep appreciation of the place.
Until he retired in 1930 at age 71, Fry offered walks, wrote nature bulletins and organized visitor centers; the thousands of visitors he touched in turn became ambassadors for the landscape he loved so much.
It is for this reason that the nature center at Lodgepole Campground was rededicated as the "Walter Fry Nature Center" in the summer of 1994. To this building children come by the thousands each summer for hands on involvement with the stuff of these parks: monster trees, awesome geology and fascinating wildlife. Each child takes home a sense of the Sierra, and in so doing, carries on a bit of Judge Walter Fry's distinctive legacy.
The Giant Sequoia
In volume of total wood, the giant sequoia stands alone as the largest living thing on Earth. Its nearly conical trunk, like a club, not a walking stick, shows why. At least one tree species lives longer, one has a greater diameter, three grow tall, but none is larger. In all the world, sequoias grow naturally only on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, most often between 5,000 and 7,000 feet. There are some 75 groves in all. The General Sherman tree is between 2,300 and 2,700 years old. Its largest branch is almost seven feet in diameter. Each year the General Sherman adds enough wood growth to make a 60-foot-tall tree of usual proportions.
"Most of the Sierra trees die of disease, fungi, etc," John Muir wrote, "but nothing hurts the Big Trees. Barring accidents, it seems to be immortal." Muir was partially right. Chemicals in the wood and bark provide resistance to insects and fungi. Their wood is so impervious to decay that piles of sawdust remain in Grant Grove's Big Stump Basin where sequoias were cut for lumber over 100 years ago. This ability helps them to survive for centuries; the oldest known sequoia lived more than 3200 years. Since they continue to grow each year, they achieve impressive sizes. The General Grant Tree, third largest of the sequoias, is over 267 ft tall, 40 ft across its base and over 107 ft around. Estimates of its age range from 1500 to 2000 years old. Once it was thought to be 4000 years old due to its extreme width, but scientific studies have shown that its size is due to rapid growth in an ideal location. The main cause of death for sequoias is toppling. Sequoias have a shallow root system with no tap root. Soil, moisture, root damage, and strong winds can also lead to toppling.
Sequoias sprout from seeds so small and light, they look like oat flakes. Mature trees may produce each year, 2,000 chicken's egg-sized cones, collectively bearing 500,000 seeds, dispersed only as cones are opened. Cones hang on the tree green and closed for up to 20 years. Douglas squirrels or the larvae of a tiny cone-boring beetle may cause cones to open, but fire is the key agent in the dispersal of seeds. It causes the cone to dry, open, and drop its seeds. The fire also consumes logs and branches that have accumulated on the forest floor. Their ashes form fertile seedbeds and enhance sequoia seedling survival. The fire cycle ensures seed release and seedbed fertility.
The General Grant is the world's third-largest sequoia, after the General Sherman and the Washington Trees, both found in Giant Forest.
It is difficult to comprehend the immense size, age and stature of the General Grant Tree, but it is easy to let your mind and spirit rise as its trunk carries your gaze toward the skies.
This tree has inspired thousands of people including the late Charles E. Lee of Sanger, California. In 1924 he visited what was then General Grant National Park, and found himself standing by the Grant Tree with a little girl. As they admired the huge tree, the girl exclaimed, "what a wonderful Christmas tree it would be!"
The idea stayed with Mr. Lee, and in 1925 he organized the first Christmas program, held at the Grant Tree at noon on Christmas Day. Mr. Lee, then secretary of the Sanger Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. R.J. Senior, president of the Chamber, conceived the idea of an annual ceremony. Mr. Lee wrote to President Calvin Coolidge, who designated the General Grant as the Nation's Christmas Tree on April 28, 1926.
The General Grant Tree is a living memorial to the men and women of the United States who have given their lives in service to their country. It was proclaimed a National Shrine on March 29, 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The official dedication was made that year on Veterans Day, November 11, by the president's personal representative, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. Each year during the Christmas ceremony, park rangers place a large wreath at the base of the Grant Tree, remembering those who gave their lives.
The 30 Largest Giant Sequoia
It is difficult to appreciate the size of the giant sequoias because neighboring trees are so large. The largest of the sequoias are as tall as an average 26 story building, and their diameters at the base exceed the width of many city streets. As they continue to grow, they produce about 40 cubic feet of wood each year, approximately equal to the volume of a 50 foot tall tree one foot in diameter.
The ages of the General Sherman, General Grant and other large sequoias are unknown, but it is estimated that these giants are between 1800 and 2700 years old. They have seen civilization come and go, survived countless fires and long periods of drought, and continue to flourish, inspiring yet another generation of admirers.
| Tree | Location | Height(ft) | Circum(ft) | Volume(cubic ft) |
| 1. General Sherman | Giant Forest | 274.9 | 102.6 | 52,508 |
| 2. Washington | Giant Forest | 254.7 | 101.1 | 47,850 |
| 3. General Grant | Grant Grove | 268.1 | 107.6 | 46,608 |
| 4. President | Giant Forest | 240.9 | 93.0 | 45,148 |
| 5. Lincoln | Giant Forest | 255.8 | 98.3 | 44,471 |
| 6. Stagg | Alder Creek | 243.0 | 109.0 | 42,557 |
| 7. Genesis | Mountain Home | 257.1 | 85.3 | 42,484 |
| 8. Boole | Converse Basin | 268.8 | 113.0 | 42,472 |
| 9. Ishi Giant | Kennedy | 248.1 | 105.1 | 42,086 |
| 10.(Franklin, near Washington) | Giant Forest | 223.8 | 94.8 | 41,280 |
| 11.King Arthur | Garfield | 270.3 | 104.2 | 40,656 |
| 12.(Monroe, near Auto Log) | Giant Forest | 247.8 | 91.3 | 40,104 |
| 13.Robert E. Lee | Grant Grove | 254.7 | 88.3 | 40,102 |
| 14.(J. Adams, near Cattle Cabin) | Giant Forest | 250.6 | 83.3 | 38,956 |
| 15.(Near Pershing) | Giant Forest | 243.8 | 93.0 | 37,295 |
| 16.(Summit) | Mountain Home | 244.0 | 82.2 | 36,600 |
| 17.(Soldiers Trail) | Giant Forest | 239.4 | 75.5 | 36,292 |
| 18.(Hazelwood) | Giant Forest | 281.5 | 95.1 | 36,228 |
| 19.Euclid | Mountain Home | 272.7 | 83.4 | 36,122 |
| 20.Washington | Mariposa Grove | 236.0 | 95.7 | 35,901 |
| 21.Pershing | Giant Forest | 246.0 | 91.2 | 35,855 |
| 22.Diamond | Atwell | 286.0 | 95.3 | 35,292 |
| 23.Adam | Mountain Home | 247.4 | 94.2 | 35,017 |
| 24.(Roosevelt or "False Hart") | Redwood Mountain | 260.0 | 80.0 | 35,013 |
| 25.Nelder | Nelder | 266.2 | 90.0 | 34,993 |
| 26.(AD) | Atwell | 242.4 | 99.0 | 34,706 |
| 27.Hart | Redwood Mountain | 277.9 | 75.3 | 34,407 |
| 28.Grizzly Giant | Mariposa Grove | 209.0 | 92.5 | 34,005 |
| 29.Chief Sequoyah | Giant Forest | 228.2 | 90.4 | 33,608 |
| 30.Methuselah | Mountain Home | 207.8 | 95.8 | 32,897 |
Data provided by Mr. Wendell Flint
Table compiled by Frank Clark, revised June 22, 1998 by Nate Stephenson
Names in parentheses are unofficial designations, proposed by Wendell Flint, followed by a location (e.g. "near Cattle Cabin")
General Grant Christmas Program
It is difficult to comprehend the immense size, age and stature of the General Grant Tree, but it is easy to let your mind and spirit rise as its trunk carries your gaze toward the skies.
This tree has inspired thousands of people including the late Charles E. Lee of Sanger, California. In 1924 he visited what was then General Grant National Park, and found himself standing by the Grant Tree with a little girl. As they admired the huge tree, the girl exclaimed, "what a wonderful Christmas tree it would be!"
The idea stayed with Mr. Lee, and in 1925 he organized the first Christmas program, held at the Grant Tree at noon on Christmas Day. Mr. Lee, then secretary of the Sanger Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. R.J. Senior, president of the Chamber, conceived the idea of an annual ceremony. Mr. Lee wrote to President Calvin Coolidge, who designated the General Grant as the Nation's Christmas Tree on April 28, 1926. At one of the early gatherings, Colonel John White, longtime Park Superintendent, expressed the feeling that brings people here year after year. "We are gathered here around a tree that is worthy of representing the spirit of America on Christmas Day. That spirit is best expressed in the plain things of life, the love of the family circle, the simple life of the out-of-doors. The tree is a pillar that is a testimony that things of the spirit transcend those of the flesh."
Some people have returned many times to rededicate themselves to the spirit of the season in the presence of this magnificent tree:
In 1976, the 50th ceremony was attended by Elizabeth Gates, who remembered the adventure of getting to the first program with her father R. J. Senior. It was a much longer, colder and more hazardous trip than today's.
Peter Beier, 27 years old at the first ceremony, still had a perfect attendance record at the 50th anniversary. He even made the trek to the tree in 1971 when a snowstorm had closed the road and the ceremony was held outside the park. He and a handful of hardy campers made it to the tree to watch as park rangers placed the traditional wreath.
A Sanger native who took part in the first ceremony as a child later returned to deliver the Christmas message. Jasper G. Havens was a minister in Idaho and Utah when he returned to speak in 1978. He recalled the cold trip of 1926 in the family's Model-T Ford.
In 1984, Al Saroyan, then 73, was honored at the 58th ceremony as one of the three Sanger High School trumpet players who performed at the 1926 event.
The Sanger Chamber of Commerce continues to sponsor the annual Christmas "Trek to the Tree" on the second Sunday of December at 2:30 p.m. For more information, contact them at 559 875-4575
A National Shrine
The General Grant Tree is a living memorial to the men and women of the United States who have given their lives in service to their country. It was proclaimed a National Shrine on March 29, 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The official dedication was made that year on Veterans Day, November 11, by the president's personal representative, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. Each year during the Christmas ceremony, park rangers place a large wreath at the base of the Grant Tree, remembering those who gave their lives.
It is fitting that a giant sequoia would be chosen as the only living national shrine. These trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) are wondrous in many respects. They are the largest living individual things on earth. Though not the tallest, nor the widest, nor the oldest, the trunks of these monarchs occupy more space than any other single organism.
Chemical elements in the wood, along with a very thick bark, make these trees resistant to the natural fires and diseases common to Sierran forests. Their wood is so impervious to decay that piles of sawdust remain in Grant Grove's Big Stump Basin where sequoias were cut for lumber over 100 years ago. This ability helps them to survive for centuries; the oldest known sequoia lived more than 3200 years. Since they continue to grow each year, they achieve impressive sizes. The General Grant Tree, third largest of the sequoias, is over 267' tall, 40' across its base and over 107' around. Estimates of its age range from 1500 to 2000 years old. Once it was thought to be 4000 years old due to its extreme width, but scientific studies have shown that its size is due to rapid growth in an ideal location.
Each year, in all seasons, visitors can return again and again to seek renewal of spirit and experience the wonder of the natural world in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Deep Canyons and High Peaks
Steep and barren, the park's canyon areas seem skeletal and cut to their geological quicks. King Canyon reaches a depth outside the park of some 8,200 feet from river level up to Spanish Mountain's peak. There, just downstream from the confluence of the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River, the canyon is without peer in North America; deeper than the Snake River's Hells Canyon in Idaho, or the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Kern Canyon in southern Sequoia National Park is 6,000 feet deep, and several other canyons exceed 4,000 feet in depth. Sierran canyons show both stream-cut, V-shaped profiles and U-shaped profiles characteristics of glacier gouging. Both Generals Highway and King Canyon Highway thread through canyons. At Roads End on Kings Canyon Highway (closed from about Nov 1 to May 1), you can stand on a flat, glacial valley and stare up at canyon walls rising nearly a mile above the river's level.
The Snowy, Sawtoothed Mountain Range is more than 400 miles long and 60 to 80 miles wide. The Sierra Nevada exceeds the whole Alps area; French, Swiss, and Italian. Palisade Crest in Kings Canyon National Park and the Mt. Whitney group in Sequoia each boast six peaks over 14,000 feet in elevation.
Wildlife
Mule deer are the prime prey sought by elusive mountain lions. Pine martens, fishers, and wolverines pursue squirrels and other smaller animals. Black bears may take fawns or eat carrion but subsists mostly on vegetation. Marmots and pikas inhabit the mountains. Coyotes, gray fox, bobcats, raccoons, and ringtails patrol the foothills. Decades of fish plantings introduced non- native brown, brook, golden, and cutthroat trout, but rainbow trout and little Kern golden trout, native to the Sierra's west slope streams, are being restored.
Crystal Cave was discovered in 1918 by two park trail construction employees who were fishing along Cascade Creek on their day off. Walter Fry, a former Park Superintendent and caving enthusiast, led the first exploration party into the cave on April 30, 1918.
In 1925 Fry wrote:
"It is in this cave that nature has lavishly traced her design in decorative glory. Throughout the entire cave the stalactite formations are rich and wonderfully varied in size, form and color. In some of the chambers the ceiling is a mass of stalactites, some very large, others tapering down to needle points. Others drop down from the roof (in) great folds of massive draperies, while yet others are great fluted columns of stalagmites of surpassing symmetry and beauty."
A Farewell to Frogs?
By Larry Waldron
(This article originally appeared in the Spring 1994 edition of The Sequoia Bark.)
Wildlife biologist Harold Werner and I were walking the river's edge when he knelt by a small pool.
"Tadpoles," he pointed out. My heart skipped a beat. "Pseudacris regilla," he said. "Oh," I said, disappointed.
He had seen tadpoles of the Pacific tree frog, but we had been waking and talking about a different, missing, amphibian. Once common, the Foothills yellow-legged frog (Rana boylei) has not been seen in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks for over 20 years. They are not the only ones in trouble. Recent studies show that numbers of the Mountain yellow-legged frog (R. muscosa), a close relative, are rapidly declining; it may soon suffer the same fate as its lower-altitude cousin. Foothills Yellow-legged Frog
Harold Werner works hard at monitoring and protecting the wildlife at Sequoia and Kings Canyon. "I consider the loss of species, particularly amphibians, the most serious problem we face," he says.
This problem may particularly tough one to address. Harold explained to me that amphibians are disappearing worldwide. It is a strange and disturbing fate for the vertebrates that first colonized land over 300 million years ago, and saw the coming and going of the dinosaurs.
It is not as if frogs lack experience in surviving. They live in a wide variety of environments all over the world, and their metamorphosis from tadpole to adult provides an advantage in the age-old race for survival. The aquatic, gill-breathing tadpoles are bottom feeders, while the lung-breathing, amphibious (water-and-land dwelling) adults feed on insects. Thus parent and offspring don't compete for the same food source.
In today's world, however, being an amphibian may have disadvantages. Their eggs have no protective shell, and their thin, moist skin is permeable; water - and other chemicals - are easily absorbed. It may be that these traits make them more vulnerable to dangers such as pesticides and ultraviolet light, horrors harder to avoid than the stomping of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
What is happening to amphibians? Dr. Gary Fellers wants to know. A former Park Service biologist recently transferred to the National Biological Survey, he has started a three-year study on the amphibians of the Sierra Nevada. Last summer a team searched many areas where frogs were once abundant. "We found no Foothills yellow-legged frogs south of Yosemite," he says.
This is of great concern. How can entire populations disappear, especially from protected areas such as parks? In not so many years past, employees at park headquarters in Ash Mountain could find Foothills yellow-legged frogs in a five-minute lunchtime walk. There are still some Mountain yellow-legged frogs in Sequoia and Kings Canyon, but they are now gone from half the sites where they were found three decades ago.
For the mountain populations, there is no question what part of their problem is. The lakes in the Sierra Nevada were dug out by glaciers about 13,000 years ago. They were fishless until the arrival of Europeans, who planted trout for sport. Trout eat the tadpoles of the yellow-legged frog. In most lakes today, where there are fish there are no frogs.
But now frogs are even disappearing from locations where there are no fish. Part of the problem may be that frogs have been isolated into smaller populations which are more susceptible to extinction, and lakes that have lost frog populations are less likely to be recolonized. While these factors may affect the Mountain yellow-legged frog, they do not explain the disappearance of the Foothills variety or the disappearance of amphibians worldwide.
Scientists are looking at many possible causes. Recent research in the Pacific Northwest suggests that increased ultraviolet light may be one factor. Chemicals released into the air have destroyed some of the protective ozone layer high in the atmosphere that used to shield earth from high levels of the sun's ultraviolet radiation.
Scientists are also looking at the effects of multiple pesticides and herbicides, global climate change, habitat destruction, and other factors.
The Tablelands in Sequoia National Park, a lake-studded expanse of rolling granite highcountry above Lodgepole, used to have thousands of Mountain yellow-legged frogs; now there are none. As an experiment, Gary Fellers would like to bring them back. He would reintroduce eggs, tadpoles, and subadults, then monitor the frogs as they develop, trying to identify the factors causing their deaths.
We should hope that he and other scientists can identify the culprit, so that something can be done before it's too late. We would miss the cheerful and varied voices of frogs. These fascinating creatures also have been valuable in scientific research, showing us how hormones act in humans and how fertilized eggs develop. And frogs eat insects - lots of insects.
Perhaps most importantly, the factors affecting them may be harming other species - including us. Scientists believe that amphibians were the first vertebrates to move from the water to the brave new world of land. It would be ironic if they are now showing the way in a less hopeful direction
Sierran Black Bears
Before Europeans settled here, the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) called these parks home. Today this symbol of California is extinct throughout the state; in fact the last known grizzly was killed quite close to Sequoia National Park in 1922. The savvy Sierran black bear (Ursus americanus), however, still ranges from the foothills to the high country.
Much smaller than the grizzly, male black bears rarely reach 400 pounds (180 kg) here; females may grow to 250 (112.5 kg). Despite their name, black bears can be brown, cinnamon or blonde.
Most black bears spend the winter in dens, typically in the base of a rotted fir tree. Bear cubs are born while their mothers are hibernating. Although they are tiny, often weighing less than 1/2 pound (.23 kg) at birth, they grow rapidly in their protected, womb-like dens. By the time the one, two or three cubs leave the den with their mother in April, they have gained some 5 pounds (2.25 kg). An adult bear, however, may have lost up to 50% of its weight during hibernation!
They emerge to seek sustenance from grasses and tender herbs, and whatever carrion they can find. They rely on meadow plants until berries begin to ripen. Bears are members of the order Carnivora, like their closest relatives dogs and raccoons, but contrary to what the name suggests, black bears eat relatively little meat. Occasionally bears do kill deer or eat the carrion left over by other predators such as cougars.
Later in the season they tear apart logs for carpenter ants and dig up yellowjacket nests. Autumn's acorns are critical to the bears' desperate efforts to gain weight needed to survive the coming winter. Sometimes in the fall, bears are spotted shaking down acorns from the oak trees. If the winter is warm and the acorn crop plentiful, some bears may remain active, descending from the conifer forest to the oaks below.
Black bears are not usually aggressive, and often escape danger by climbing a tree. But some bears learn to associate people with food, and may lose their instinctive fear of humans. This begins a cycle of unnatural behavior that is dangerous to both bears and humans.
Yearlings, in their first season away from mom, know the least about finding wild foods and are most vulnerable. They may be the first to become campground bears and the most difficult to return to a natural diet.
These intelligent animals identify food not only by smell, but by appearance, bags, cans, coolers, and even cars become tempting. Once one ice chest or car yields food, bears don't hesitate to pry open others to check for our protein-rich, high-calorie food. Because human foods are usually such concentrated sources of protein and calories, bears will select them so long as they take less effort to obtain than berries and acorns.
Bear #583 died because he got used to getting food from people. If you are planning a visit to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, learn what to do to keep your food away from bears.
Geology
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are the home of awe-inspiring geological features and resources. The parks contain a significant portion of America's longest mountain range, the Sierra Nevada. Included in the Parks' mountainous landscape is the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mt. Whitney, which rises to 14,491 feet above sea level. Eleven additional peaks taller than 14,000 feet are also found along the parks' eastern boundaries at the crest of the Sierra Nevada. In Kings Canyon National Park, prominent ridges extend westward from the crest creating the Goddard and Monarch divides with mountains taller than 13,000 feet. In Sequoia National Park, a second prominent ridge of mountains, The Great Western Divide parallels the Sierran crest. It is the mountains of the Great Western Divide that greet visitors in Mineral King and that can be seen from Moro Rock and the Giant Forest area. Peaks in the Great Western Divide climb to more than 12,000 feet.
Moraine Lake is an example of the beautiful scenery found in the parks backcountry. This lake and the mountain peak behind it formed due to the activity of glaciers.
Between these mighty mountains lie deep, spectacular canyons. Most significant is Kings Canyon. In the parks, Kings Canyon is a wide glacial valley featuring spectacular tall cliffs, a lovely meandering river, green vibrant meadows and beautiful waterfalls. A few miles outside the parks, Kings Canyon deepens and steepens becoming arguably the deepest canyon in North America for short distance. The confluence of the South Fork and Middle forks of the Kings River lies at 2,260 feet, while towering above the rivers on the north side of the canyon is Spanish Peak, which is 10,051 feet tall. The south side of this canyon above the confluence is significantly lower. Dozens of other canyons also await visitors to the two parks. This includes scenic Tokopah Valley above Lodgepole, Deep Canyon on the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River and deep in the parks' remote backcountry, Kern Canyon, which is more than 5,000 feet deep for 30 miles. The parks are headwaters for the Kaweah River, the Kern River, two forks of the Kings River and small areas of the San Joaquin and Tule river watersheds.
Most of the mountains and canyons in the Sierra Nevada are formed in granitic rocks. These rocks, such as granite, diorite and monzonite, formed when molten rock cooled far beneath the surface of the earth. The molten rock was a by-product of a geologic process known as subduction. Powerful forces in the earth forced the landmass under the waters of the Pacific Ocean beneath and below an advancing North American Continent. Super-hot water driven from the subjecting ocean floor migrated upward and melted rock as it went. This process took place during the Cretaceous Period 100 million years ago. Grantic rocks have speckled salt and pepper appearance because they contain various minerals including quartz, feldspars and micas.
Vallhalla or the Angel Wings are prominent cliffs that rise above the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River.
While geologists debate the details, it is clear that the Sierra Nevada is a young mountain range, probably not more than 10 million years old. Incredible forces in the earth, probably associated with the development of the Great Basin, forced the mountains to grow and climb toward the sky. During the 10 million years at least four periods of glacial advance have coated the mountains in a thick mantle of ice. Glaciers form and develop during long periods of cool and wet weather. Today, a few small glaciers remain in the parks. They are the southern-most glaciers in North America. Glaciers move through the mountains like slow-motion rivers carving deep valleys and craggy peaks. The extensive history of glaciation within the range and the erosion resistant nature of the granitic rocks that make up most of the Sierra Nevada have together created a spectacular landscape of hanging valleys, towering waterfalls, craggy peaks, alpine lakes and gigantic glacial canyons.
The Sierra Nevada is still growing today. In fits and leaps the mountains gain height during earthquakes on the east side of the range near Bishop and Lone Pine. Rain and winter snows combined with the steep character of the landscape create an environment that includes massive movements of sediment and rapid erosion. The mountains are being removed by erosion almost as quickly as they grow. This erosion has created and deposited sediments thousands of feet thick on the floor of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys.
Small sections of the park contain areas of metamorphic (or changed) rocks. These rocks are the remnants of volcanic islands that were added to North America before the Sierra Nevada uplift. They include metamorphosed volcanic rocks, schist, quartzite, phyllite, and marble.
Surprisingly, the marble rocks in the parks contain caves. Marble is metamorphosed limestone and Sequoia and Kings Canyon contain more than 200 marble caves. Caves only form under special conditions including the right kind of rock, fractures or spaces in the rock and enough water to erode underground rooms and passages. The caves of the two parks include the longest cave in California, Lilburn Cave, with nearly 17 miles of surveyed passage. Lilburn is a very complex maze cave with beautiful blue- and white-banded marble. Nearby mines attest to the unusual geology in the Lilburn area and the cave has displays of rare and colorful minerals including green malachite and blue azurite. Beautiful Crystal Cave features a trail and lights for park visitors. This commercialized cave has seen millions of visitors since it first opened to the public in 1941. It has beautifully banded marble, many cave formations, large rooms, and the creative Spider Web Gate. Soldier's Cave has been a favorite with California cave explorers since its discovery in 1949. Three rope drops must be negotiated to reach the cave's lowest and most extensive level. Several outstanding formation areas exist, one of which has high quality "dog-tooth spar" crystals. This cave has suffered due to inadvertent damage by cave explorers. People have accidentally broken cave formations and muddied extensive areas of white flowstone. Soldiers Cave was the site of a restoration and cleaning project between 1992 and 1997.
Plant Life of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
Extreme topographic differences and a striking elevation gradient (ranging from 1,360 feet (412 m) in the foothills to 14,491 feet (4,417 m) along the Sierran crest) create a rich tapestry of environments, from the hot, dry lowlands along the western boundary to the stark and snow-covered alpine high country. This topographic diversity in turn supports over 1,200 species (and more than 1400 taxa, including subspecies and varieties) of vascular plants, which make up dozens of unique plant communities. These include not only the renowned groves of massive giant sequoia, but also vast tracts of montane forests, spectacular alpine habitats, and oak woodlands and chaparral. The richness of the Sierran flora mirrors that of the state as a whole--of the nearly 6,000 species of vascular plants known to occur in California, over 20% of them can be found within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Blue oak woodland with an annual grass understory in the foothills of Sequoia National Park.
Along the western edge of the parks, the vast grasslands of the Great Central Valley give way to blue oak savanna and a mosaic of chaparral types. Unlike most of the park vegetation, which is made up of plant species native to the region, the foothill grassland is composed primarily of non-native annual grasses which were introduced to California during the mid nineteenth century and have subsequently become naturalized. The slow-growing, gnarled blue oaks that dot this landscape can be hundreds of years old.
Dominated by dense thickets of sclerophyllous (thick leaved) shrubs, chaparral communities are characteristic of lowland Mediterranean climates, where winter rains provide most of the precipitation and, but for the hot dry summers, temperatures are relatively mild. Many of these species exhibit specific adaptations to fire and drought, both of which have a strong influence on life in the foothill environment.
Unlike many of the coniferous forests of the world, which are dominated by a single species of tree, the mixed coniferous forests that cloak the lower and middle montane slopes of the Sierra Nevada support a remarkable diversity of tree species. Here ponderosa pine, incense cedar, white fir, sugar pine, and scattered groves of giant sequoia intermix and coexist. These trees, many of which reach tremendous heights, form some of the most extensive stands of old growth coniferous forest that remain in the world.
Red fir forests grow in pure stands in the mid to upper elevation forest belt (7,000 to 9,000 feet) of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. These stately trees typically form a dark forest with scant ground cover.
In the upper montane, the mixed coniferous forest is replaced by nearly pure stands of red fir and lodgepole pine. Characterized by deep snow accumulation during the winter months and a dense canopy that limits the amount of sunlight that reaches the forest floor, the red fir forests lack a diverse herbaceous component. Only the most shade tolerant herbs thrive beneath the towering trees. Lodgepole pines have an unusual distribution, growing in both moist lowlands and in drier sites on benches and ridges. In wetter sites, these forests can support a rich amalgam of herbs and wildflowers in their understory.
Above the upper-most edge of the montane forests, subalpine woodlands define the limit of tree life in the Sierra. In Sequoia National Park, these include the southernmost populations of foxtail pine, a close relative of the long-lived bristlecone pine which can be found in the White Mountains to the east. Downed pieces of foxtail wood can persist intact for thousands of years, preserved by the extremely cold and dry conditions that characterize the high elevations. To the north, stands of whitebark pine provide a critical food source for the ubiquitous Clark's nutcracker.
Foxtail pine grow in scattered stands on bare rocky slopes at high elevations. Exposed to extremes of temperature, unlimited sunlight, severe winds and storms, and long summer droughts, these trees have shapes sculpted by the elements.
Where soils are too saturated or shallow to support tree growth, numerous meadows can be found in the montane, subalpine and alpine zones. Wet meadows support a remarkably diverse assemblage of grasses, sedges and wildflowers, which provide essential habitat for many small mammals, birds, and insects. Dryland meadows, too, are an important source of food and shelter for animals of the higher elevations.
In the rocky alpine, where the short growing season and harsh winter conditions exclude all but the hardiest of plants, stunted trees give way to low-growing, perennial herbs. Here plants often form ground-hugging mats or hummocks to take advantage of the warmer surface temperatures. In winter, the snowpack provides insulation from sub-freezing temperatures and desiccating winds. During the brief summer, when freezing temperatures and snowstorms remain a threat, surprisingly showy flowers burst forth in the race to set seed before winter returns.
The parks� vegetation management programs focus on understanding the parks� flora and vegetation, protecting rare species, restoring natural fire regimes to forest and chaparral ecosystems, monitoring and controlling invasive non-native (exotic) plants, restoring disturbed habitats and landscapes, and monitoring and managing impacts from recreational and administrative uses. Brief overviews of these programs are found on the following pages, along with suggestions for additional sources of information.
Water Resources
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks contain some 3200 lakes and ponds and approximately 2600 miles of rivers and streams. Three major rivers originate in these parks --Kings, Kaweah and Kern. These rivers provide valuable irrigation water to the rich agricultural lands in Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties as well as providing water for recreation and industrial activities outside the parks. The monitoring and maintenance of watershed health is clearly of interest not only to park managers but also to water users thoughout this region.
Winter snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is a natural storage system for the precipitation that accumulates during winter months. The amount of water stored as snowpack increases through mid-April at higher elevations. Meltoff typically begins in April and continues through May or June. October is the month in which the least water runoff occurs from park watersheds. Snowfields, forests, lakes and streams collect, store, and release the water supplied from winter storms so it is available throughout the dry summers for agriculture, recreation, electrical power generation and other uses. The amount of snowpack is also important to park vegetation and wildlife. In years of low snowpack accumulation, there is less water available for plant growth (for example, many trees will produce a small annual ring in years of drought). During these drought years, reduced plant growth and fruit and seed production result in altered food production for wildlife.
Water determines the distribution and abundance of many plants and animals throughout the Sierra Nevada by shaping and providing habitat. Lakes and streams support rich communities of native organisms both in the water and in adjoining riparian areas. Water is also a powerful attractant to human visitors to these parks, as is evident from the popularity of rivers, streams and lakes as destinations for picnickers, hikers, campers and anglers. Introduced (non-native) animals, human use of rivers and lakes, runoff and effluent from park developed areas and ecosystem-level, human-caused changes have had negative impacts on SEKI water resources. Park research, inventory and monitoring are critical in identifying changes in water quality and quantity and declines in native plant and animal populations that can result from human-caused impacts to aquatic systems.
Information from the National Park Service
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