The Fallen Giant

Sequoia National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California, in the United States. It was established on... more

by Mirko Chianucci

Title

The Fallen Giant

Artist

Mirko Chianucci

Medium

Photograph

Description

Sequoia National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California, in the United States. It was established on September 25, 1890. The park spans 1.635,19 km2. Encompassing a vertical relief of nearly 4.000 m, the park contains among its natural resources the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, Mount Whitney, at 4.418 m above sea level. The park is south of and contiguous with Kings Canyon National Park; the two are administered by the National Park Service together as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. They were designated the UNESCO Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve in 1976. The park is famous for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five out of the ten largest trees in the world. The Giant Forest is connected by the Generals Highway to Kings Canyon National Park's General Grant Grove, home to the General Grant tree among other giant sequoias. The park's giant sequoia forests are part of 202.430 acres of old-growth forests shared by Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

The lower elevations around Ash Mountain contain the only National Park Service-protected California Foothills ecosystem, consisting of blue oak woodlands, foothills chaparral, grasslands, yucca plants, and steep, mild river valleys. At higher elevations in the front country, between 1.700 and 2.700 m in elevation, the landscape becomes montane forest-dominated coniferous belt. Found here are Ponderosa, Jeffrey, sugar, and lodgepole pine trees, as well as abundant white and red fir. Found here too are the giant sequoia trees, the most massive living single-stem trees on earth. Between the trees, spring and summer snowmelts sometimes fan out to form lush, though delicate, meadows. The vast majority of the park is roadless wilderness; no road crosses the Sierra Nevada within the park's boundaries. 84 percent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is designated wilderness and is accessible only by foot or by horseback. Sequoia's backcountry offers a vast expanse of high-alpine wonders. Covering the highest-elevation region of the High Sierra, the backcountry includes Mount Whitney on the eastern border of the park, accessible from the Giant Forest via the High Sierra Trail.

Animals that inhabit this park are coyote, badger, black bear, sheep, deer, fox, cougar, eleven species of woodpecker, various species of turtle, three species of owl, opossum, various species of snake, wolverine, roadrunner, beaver, various species of frog, and muskrat. The main attractions of the park include: the Sherman Tree Trail, a roundtrip paved trail that descends from the parking lot to the base of the General Sherman tree and meanders through a grove of giant sequoia trees; Tunnel Log, a tunnel cut through a fallen giant sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park; Tokopah Falls, with impressive granite cliffs and waterfall of Tokopah Canyon; Crescent Meadow, a small sequoia-rimmed meadow in the Giant Forest region of Sequoia National Park; Moro Rock, a granite dome located in the center of the park, at the head of Moro Creek, between Giant Forest and Crescent Meadow.

Uploaded

February 11th, 2017