The next stop on our trip after seeing the wonderful view at Moro Rock were the giant Sequoia trees in Sequoia National Park. Among these trees is the General Sherman tree which is the by volume largest known living single stem tree on earth!
The tree that you can see in this picture is not the largest of the Sequoia trees, but it still is huge, and I love how tiny I look in front of it!
Before going to the giants trail, which is the trail where General Sherman and many other famous Sequoia trees are located, we decided to walk around in another part of the forest where there were no people around but we could still see some really impressive trees. Look at these two for example:
Me and my roommate for scale!
This forest reminded me a bit of nature in Finland, only that everything seemed to be on steroids here! Look at this pine cone for example, it is not even the biggest one I have found!
Now some of you might be laughing at me for getting so excited about a huge pine cone (which you might not even think is that big) but in Finland the pine cones are not even a quarter of that size! I must admit I think pine cones are really cute, and I remember thinking that I would not at all mind being a squirrel in my next life if I could live in Sequoia National Park!
We also visited Tunnel Log, which is a huge tree that has fallen and made into a tunnel. Maybe you could guess that from the name? _ I think it is quite amazing that we could actually fit to drive through the stem of a tree with our van!! Sadly I do not have a picture of that since I was sitting in the van feeling really excited about driving through a tree, but you can see the magnitude of the log from the pictures below.
And then we finally arrived at the General Sherman tree, the by volume largest living single stem tree on earth! It is not however the tallest, widest or oldest living tree, but it is still huge! It is 83,8 meters (274,9 feet) high, it has a maximum diameter of 11,1 meters (36,5 feet) and it is estimated to be 2300 to 2700 years old!!! Is that not unbelievable?
Can you see those tiny people next to the stem? They look like small ants!
It was impossible to take a picture of the whole tree, so here you have a picture of me with maybe a quarter of the tree!
I also found this cute tree tunnel that I had to take a picture of. This place really made me feel like a child again. So many amazing places to hide or build huts in! I would have loved to play here as a kid and I really look forward to going back to Sequoia National Park when it gets warmer so I can do more hiking and some camping.
This post is the second part of a nine day road trip I did through California on thanksgiving week! If you have not yet seen the first part have a look at it here: My Exchange #17 - Climbing up to the top of Moro Rock, my favorite view in California!
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Thank you for reading once again! I hope you enjoyed the pictures!
mialinnea