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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature: Sequoia National Park


Sequoia National Park is located in the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range, south of Yosemite and directly south of and adjoining King Canyon National Park. The park features a number of scenic wonders, including some of the largest trees in the world, one of the deepest canyons in the U.S., and some of the highest mountain peaks in the contiguous 48 states. Over 2,000,000 people per year visit Kings Canyon and Sequoia parks.

This landscape testifies to nature's size, beauty, and diversity, huge mountains, rugged foothills, deep canyons, vast caverns, and the world’s largest trees! King Canyon and Sequoia National Parks lie side by side in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of the San Joaquin Valley.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks offer more than 850 miles of maintained wilderness trails. Over 723,000 of the parks' acres are officially designated as Wilderness.
Sequoia National Park is home to many bears The park's mammal list includes common species such as the ornate shrew, big brown bat, coyote, black bear, ringtail, mule deer, and pika; and several rare species, such as the wolverine, badger, bighorn sheep (federally endangered), and many rare bats, half of which are state or federally listed. It also includes several exotics, including the Virginia opossum, beaver, and muskrat. Black bears  are an integral part of the Sierra ecosystem and one of the many wildlife species the National Park Service is mandated to protect. Black bears range throughout both Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, where they forage for natural foods, digging up roots in meadows, ripping apart logs, and peering into tree cavities for food.

Unlike many of the cone-bearing, evergreen forests of the world, which are dominated by a single species of tree, the mixed-conifer forests that cloak the lower and middle slopes of the Sierra Nevada are remarkably diverse. Here ponderosa pine, incense-cedar, white fir, sugar pine, and scattered groves of giant sequoia intermix and coexist. These trees, many of which reach tremendous heights, form some of the most extensive stands of old-growth coniferous forest that remain in the world.
The two tribes that lived in the area of the parks, the Monache and Yokuts, were separated by language and history. The Yokuts spoke a Penutian language, like many other tribes of interior California, while the Monache language is similar to the Shoshone or Paiute from the Great Basin east of the Sierra.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Spanish began exploring the edge of the Sierras. Soon afterwards, trappers, sheepherders, miners, and loggers poured into the Sierras seeking to exploit whatever the mountains had to offer. By the end of the 19th century, San Joaquin Valley communities increasingly looked to the Sierras for water and recreation. In the struggle between all these competing interests, two national parks were born that became what we know today as Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Today the parks together protect 265 Native American archeological sites and 69 historic sites.
Sequoia National Park has many beautiful sequoia trees along the trail Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are a great place to climb. The rock here is similar to Yosemite in quality. One can enjoy an endless variety of climbs from easy to extremely challenging without the crowds and pressure of more famous climbing areas. Outstanding routes include the Obelisk, Grand Sentinel, and Chimney Rock. Most climbs require at least a day's hike in.

The easiest site to access in Sequoia is Moro Rock, just off the Generals Highway near Giant Forest. The west face offers 1,000 vertical feet of cracks and knobs. For a more remote climb, hike the High Sierra Trail to Angel Wings. At roughly 2,000 feet, this is one of the park's biggest walls. It's an 18-mile hike from Crescent Meadow. Other Sequoia highlights: Little Baldy and the quartzite Hospital Rock, both off the Generals Highway.

Looming granite walls, great vistas, quiet rivers, pleasant waterfalls—some of the most level hikes in the parks can be found here as well as some of the most steep, hot, and strenuous. There is something for every hiker in the Kings Canyon.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon Parks form the heart of the second-largest contiguous roadless area left in the lower 48 states. The southern Sierra is so rugged that few roads cross it; you must go north to Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park or south to Walker Pass or Tehachapi Pass.

The mid-elevation Sierra coniferous forest supports a remarkable diversity of tree species. Here ponderosa pine, incense-cedar, white fir, sugar pine, and scattered groves of giant sequoia intermix, forming one of the most extensive stands of old-growth coniferous forest remaining in the world.

Campgrounds in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks campgrounds are located in oak woodlands in the warm, dry foothills and in the higher, cooler conifer forests. They range in elevation from 2,100 to 7,500 feet. Lodgepole, Dorst, Grant Grove and Atwell Mill campgrounds are near giant sequoia groves. In general, higher elevation campgrounds are cooler and closer to giant sequoias.
 
 
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