California - Day 13 - King's Canyon and General Grant

Visalia/Sequoia National Park KOA, Visalia

Sunday, 13 March 2022

today's route

Not far from the campground I saw another one of those vineyards next to a feedlot.

vineyard in the foreground, cows behind

It's my understanding that wine gets its flavor from the environment around the grapes as they grow.  So how is it that a wine can taste good if the grapes it comes from grow up right next to a stinky feedlot?

On the road today between a hayfield and a vineyard, a personal event occurred: my odometer turned over 100,000 miles.  

Considering I've been on the road for a good part of the last 4 years, and considering that California is the 36th state I've visited, I'd've thought I'd reach this milestone much sooner than this.  But today was the day.

I passed a lot of orange trees today, and many of them were wrapped in some kind of netting.

I don't know if that's to protect them from the still quite cold nights or to protect them from bugs or birds or for some other reason.  They look odd though.

I saw huge orange groves today, plus farms advertising plums, peaches and nectarines, though I think it's still too early for those.

Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park are right next to each other and seem to be managed as one unit by the National Park Service.  When I was planning my visit here, I looked up the scenic drives into these parks and learned that my options were seriously limited by the weather.  Most of them were still closed due to snow.  In fact, one of the few roads I could find open was the one that would let me see General Grant, one of the world's largest trees.  That was actually fine with me because that tree is one of the main things I wanted to see during my month here.  And that's where I went today.

Of course, I had to get there and just because the road was open didn't make it an easy drive.  It didn't take long before I was stuck on a winding, climbing mountain road with plenty of switchbacks and no shoulders.  For me to pull over to let traffic go around me, I had to find a driveway or something similar.  But several folks honked to thank me as they went by, so that was positive reinforcement.

Plus there were signs saying, "Slow - Watch for Snow - Icy Spots," which didn't inspire confidence.  And I passed lots of patches of snow, though I thought they looked old, meaning I wouldn't be meeting fresh snow.  A sign told me I passed 6,000'.

The Kings Canyon visitor center lies at 6,589'.  The nice person at the entrance gate gave me an informational brochure, but I stopped at the visitor center anyway because all of us needed to stretch our legs.  The walking trail to the General Grant tree was only about a half mile farther down the road.

I was lucky and saw a park ranger on the trail, and she very kindly stopped and answered my questions.  These started with: what's the difference between the sequoias here and the redwoods farther north.  She told me that sequoias grow a little older, a little shorter, and a lot bigger around than the redwoods.  Sequoias don't have tap roots and need to be at high altitudes because they get moisture into their shallow roots from snowmelt.  In contrast, redwoods need to be on the coast because they get their moisture through their needles from coastal fog.  She also told me that sequoia branches don't grow low to the ground as Nature's way of preventing fire from being a bigger risk by rising up the tree than it poses at the tree's base.

She told me that a key element to a sequoia's size was location, and later I found a sign that explained it.

When I was talking to her, we were standing in front of a tree that didn't have a label, but she told me it was named General Robert E. Lee.  (One of these days I'll figure out how to rotate the image in a video, but for now you'll have to rotate your picture.  Sorry.)  The video below is of the General Robert E. Lee tree.

The ranger said these trees were named soon after the Civil War - there's one for Clara Barton here too - so there's also a General Sherman tree (the world's largest tree) here, and there are some named for states as well.

Here's a photo of the base of the Gen. Lee tree:

Gen. Lee tree - note burned area at the bottom

That open space at the bottom is where the tree was burned in a fire; afterwards it grows protective bark around the area, which is what you see in that photo.

The park had another example of fire - the Tennessee tree - and a sign pointing out that sequoias must have wildfire to propagate because that's what makes their cones open up.  Also, wildfire creates open spaces on the forest floor which allow seedlings to get enough light and air to grow.

base of the Tennessee tree showing where it burned

Though it's much smaller than some other trees here, the Tennessee Tree isn't a slouch where growth is concerned:

I finally made it to my goal - the General Grant - and here it is.

see the tiny human figure at right

it's in the lower right corner

And for pure facts:

On one of the signs they explain that they can't count exactly how old a living tree is because they can't get to its interior growth rings.  Instead, scientists have worked out a mathematical formula for calculating age based on counting the rings in a tree stump and measuring the tree's circumference.  That gives a general formula that works to within a couple of hundred years (which is quite a range when you think about it).  

But the ranger told me they use carbon dating to tell a tree's age, which makes more sense to me.  They've already pointed out in their signs that the General Grant tree is much much larger than other trees that are much older.  The Gen. Lee tree above is about 3,000 years old, while the General Grant tree is a mere 1,700 years old, but it's much bigger due to the difference in habitat.  Which is again surprising because they grow fairly close together - but the ranger said there's a big difference in the amount of sun and moisture the two receive, which accounts for it.

Here's one more view of the base of the General Grant:

It doesn't look it to me, but that tree is 40' in diameter.

Back down in the parking area, I found some space to walk the dogs and took a couple more tree pictures.

conjoined twins

same trees from the back, with my
RV for comparison

On the drive back down the hill, I passed a sign saying, "Avoid Overheating - Turn Off AC."  I've seen those signs before and wouldn't have thought it'd be hot enough here to apply.  But this road is seriously steep: I dropped from 5,000' to 4,000' in 4.1 miles, and then to 3,000' in 3.8 miles.

Unfortunately I didn't get much sleep last night and had a lot of trouble staying awake.  That was a problem because the road into the park was a constant series of s-curves with rocky outcroppings crowding my side of the road.  Not a problem for a passenger car but I was afraid I'd run into those rocks with my camper side.  And even that couldn't keep me awake.  It was a long drive down.

But I made it.

I saw huge swaths of yellow flowers surrounded by drifts of white ones - like sunnyside up eggs, only with flowers.

We stopped for a walk at the El Monte middle school - Home of the Lobos.  Then back to Visalia, elevation 310'.  Quite a climb today.