General Grant Grove

At Azalea Campground, Kings Canyon NP

The General Grant Tree, above, is the second largest tree known to man, behind the General Sherman Tree which is in Sequoia National Park.  There is a difference between “Tallest Tree” and “Largest Tree”.  The General Grant Tree is only 267 feet tall…the tallest tree, named Hyperion and is located in Redwood National Park in Northwestern California, is 380 feet tall.  But when you take the width and height of a tree you can figure out how much cubic feet of wood are in the tree.  The Grant Tree has a Circumference of 107 feet, and contains 46,608 cubic feet of wood.  Hyperion, though taller, only contains 18,600 cubic feet of wood. 

The General Grant Tree is located in General Grant Grove…which once was once called General Grant National Park, before it was merged into what is now Kings Canyon National Park.  The Grove stands alone as a separate portion of the park, separated by Sequoia National Park and Sequoia National Forest.  Both the parks are jointly administered by the National Park Service as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.  The Grove is very close to the Azalea Campground, where we are staying, and the Sunset and Crystal Springs Campgrounds which open in the next couple of weeks. The main trail, which is highlighted in yellow, is very ADA friendly, and Marcia had no problems with her GoGo except for the fact the battery was a bit low, and I helped to slightly push her for about 20’, although it may have made it on its own.  That path was about 1/2 of a mile, no more than 3/4 of a mile.

   

There ae many interesting trees in the Grove, including this one to the left, the Robert E. Lee Tree, which looks like it is standing on its toes, and the Fallen Monarch where I got a picture of two people inside of this fallen tree which has showed very little decay in over 100 years, and was used for shelter back in the late 1800’s.  The Lee tree is the second largest in Grant Grove, and the eleventh largest giant sequoia in the world.

Above is another view of the Grant Tree…note the two people to the right, how they look like ants compared to the magnitude of this tree.

    

The Gamlin brothers lived in the “Fallen Monarch” while building their cabin.  The cabin have been moved and reconstructed three times after it was first built, with improvements of a concrete foundation in 1978 and lower walls of sugar pine replaced with more insect resistant redwood, along with some of the siding.

   

Back in the latter half of the 1800’s, stories of these huge trees were being told, but folks just could not believe it.  So a few large trees were cut down, as was the tree from this stump above in 1875, and a 16 foot section sent to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876…and people still called it a “California Hoax”.

   

Although these Redwood Trees are a bit easier to take a photo of than the Coastal Redwoods, it is still hard to catch the fullness of some of the trees.  The bottom picture above was taken in panoramic mode, and I still did not get the top of the tree.

    

These last two trees are the “Lincoln Tree” to the left, and the “New Mexico Tree” to the right.  Look at the size of that school bus in the distance to the size of the tree!

Overall it was a nice easy hike (despite the 6,000+ feet in altitude), not too crowded, lots of folks from all over the world.  The time to visit is definitely spring, although portions of the Azalea Campground are open year around…spring is cool (it will be 38 degrees tonight, and only 57 tomorrow which is our coldest day) which is better than the extreme highs of 90+ in the summer.  In the winter, one can find snow easily at the 6,000 foot elevation level…but for the extreme campers, it must be a pretty sight to see…but many parts of the parks will be closed for the winter, but they try to keep the main highways open all year, except during and immediately after strong storms.  Tomorrow…we go for a drive….