A Traveler and his Cat exploring America.





Thursday, December 11, 2014

Calaveras Big Trees


We began our trip with an overnight at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in the Sierra Mountains.  This state park preserves two groves of giant sequoia trees.  Some of these trees are over a thousand years old, over twenty feet in diameter at their base and over two hundred feet tall.

It was neat to walk through this grove for I had it all to myself. 
No one else was there to get in the way of my picture taking.

 That is a lot of wood.  Even when you are there it is difficult to comprehend the mass of tree standing before you.

They don't get much skinnier the higher you look up either.

It gets hard on the neck after awhile looking up all the time and the park service took that into consideration when they made these benches to gaze upon the trees by.


Our coastal redwoods are taller and sometimes close to the same size at the base as these sequoias but their pine cones are very small.  Not so the sequoia.
This one was nearly the size of a loaf of bread. 

Big difference from all that desert stuff I've been showing you the past few weeks, huh?





8 comments:

s.c said...

Love the bench. Wonder what kind of wood its made from.

biebkriebels said...

Those giant trees are so impressive. I had never seen that before when I visited such a wood. That bench is a great find, people must have complained about neck pains a lot before I suppose.

MarkD60 said...

Excellent trees! I love the bench too! They'd be good for the beach here! In South Carolina, where I lived when I was 3 till when I was 5, there were huge pine cones!

Linda Kay said...

I loved seeing these trees. That bench looks pretty uncomfortable!

Karen said...

Beautiful trees...love the bark colorations, but gotta say the bench made me smile.

The Furry Gnome said...

Wow! Some trees!

TexWisGirl said...

so very cool! like the lean-back bench, too. (but where's the stinking fence?! just kidding!) :)

RedPat said...

Wow - incredible trees!