The Giant Forest

After being snowed in at Grant Grove the day before, we ventured out in our last day of touring and headed to the Giant Forest - our intended destination for the previous day. If we were there in June, we would have been able to make a short, awesomely scenic drive through dramatic Kings Canyon and arrived at the Giant Forest after less than 30 miles. It being March, that convenient road was closed, probably buried under 20 feet of snow. Instead, we headed west out of the park and began our morning of very very curvy roads. We went down down down. After about five mile and 30 curves, we had left winter and were into spring. The valleys were filled with wild flowers. The streams were babbling. The cows were mooing. Hard to believe our escape from snow was that quick. Though the fear of sliding off the formerly icy road had disappeared, the curves continued. After the thousandth curve we reached the valley floor, drove through miles of orange groves, and swung around on the connecting highway to run into the park from the south. Then it was the reverse. A thousand curves. Up up up. And all of a sudden, spring disappeared. A bit of snow showed up in the shadows. Then boom! We were right back into the deep freeze, ten foot snow drifts. And the huge sequoias began. One after another. We learned that the Giant Forest has over 1,000 sequoias over 10 feet in diameter. This compares to Mariposa and Grant Grove having around 100 each. We will have to return to the Giant Forest soon to continue our exploration.

This trio of giants was right by the parking lot, sort of like the greeting committee!
Here's one of several information kiosks. You would have to want information really badly in order to dig it out here!

This is the scene just outside the museum, with the flag pole lending a bit of additional scale for the giants.

The museum is dwarfed in the background. The tree show is famous enough to have a name: "The Sentinel".

This is the base of the General Sherman - advertised to be the biggest tree in the world - measured in the volume of the trunk. Some tourists respected the fences and the rules to stay away from the bases of the giants (the roots are damaged by soil compression around the base). Some did not. I figured with so much snow piled up that no roots would be damaged by non-tree hugging tourists.

That's Jacob posing on a foot bridge crossing a stream, surrounded by giants. We were exploring on a path deeper into the woods, distancing ourselves from most of the crowd in the General Sherman area. There were still a few families braving the deeper snow so we weren't completely alone.

Many trees in the Giant Forest showed dramatic fire scars, and quite a few were just burned out trunks. This area must have experienced a raging forest fire recently.

We were deep in the forest when the snow started to fall. It was beautiful watching it waft down through the branches. We enjoyed it for a few minutes and then started to think about the consequences of getting stuck here if the roads iced over. We were reluctant to cut short our visit, but after a bit more exploring we headed back to the car.

This cross section was on display near the Sherman tree. I imagine that during the summer there is a sign visible that gives more explanation.

The General Sherman tree stands in the middle.

This is at an overlook about half way back down the mountain on our way home from the Giant Forest. Though we have exited winter, it is still a bit too cold to declare it spring.

Near the base of the mountain we stopped at an area called Hospital Rock. There was a nice information center explaining the various tribes of Indians who had lived in the area. Near the huge rock, there was a horizontal low-lying rock which showed the holes Indians used as their mortars when grinding acorns. Oh yes, there was great bear signage...but no bears.

This is Hospital Rock. The red markings on the rock are thought to have been made by Indians, though nobody has been able to explain what they mean.