Day 43

We woke the kids up this morning with Dave's famous hashbrown breakfast. Ryan was thrilled! And it was definitely delicious. We had a long day ahead of us so we packed lots of snacks and water in backpacks and walked to the visitors center.

The exhibits as usual were very interesting. The kids and I spent at least 20 minutes digesting this display of how every living things needs each other. When people interfere and try to help by removing or adding something to the mix it messes all these things up!

We watched a very interesting movie about tourism in Sequoia. Once it became a national park there were cabins, campgrounds, a lodge and other comfort buildings built in the middle of the Giant Forest. At one time there were more than 300 buildings. The trees started to suffer because of many reasons but mainly the addition of plumbing, pollution, and  people. Some sequoia trees were even cut down because they were threatening to fall on cabins. Finally someone realized this wasn't a great idea so the buildings were all torn down and taken away in the 1980s. There were amazing before and after photos that showed the area's gentle return to nature. I was excited to see it today!

Ryan and I decided to watch a quick movie about prescribed fires.  There were these type of fires often where we live so we are familiar with them but I learned a little more how they prepare and execute the fires. Sequoias are trees that thrive after a fire with added sunshine to the forest floor and the opening of their cones.

The movie in the auditorium was about bears in Sequoia so we stayed for that one as well. Through all our travels we have learned so much about bear safety and what parks are doing to try to keep bears wild. This movie was more of the same with footage of car breakins and campground raids.

We hopped on the park shuttle next destined for the General Sherman Tree. I was thrilled to not have to drive and find parking in the popular areas. I would think this option is much better for the environment as well. I wish more parks would offer this to their guests!

The trail down to the tree was an easy walk on a paved path into a grove of sequoias. General Sherman tree is actually dead on the top but is still growing at the bottom to be the earth's largest living thing.  This guy is a young 2,200 years old!

After walking around the whole tree we checked out the rest of the grove. There were twins where you could see fire scars from different years. The fire scars were so big we could fit inside them!









There was also a tunnel carved out of a fallen tree that you could walk under. Us short people didn't even have to duck!




I was excited to see there was a program on the Buffalo soldiers this afternoon so we headed there next. The presenter was an intern that seemed to have a ton of knowledge about one of the leaders who visited Sequoia for a sunmer, Charles Young. Before there were national parks these protected areas were managed by the military. A few summers they were managed by a group of Buffalo Soldiers that accomplished more in one summer than other had the past three years.  This was definitely a topic we were going to add to our homeschool list as I had no idea this program even existed! We were joined at the end of the talk by our ranger from the program the night before. She added a few facts that she could share as well.

Dave noticed there was a food truck in the parking lot so we grabbed a quick lunch next before hopping back on the bus to the Giant Forest.  In front of the museum was a tree called The Sentinel that was considered an "average" sequoia tree. It was heavier than 2 fully-loaded jumbo jets. It was as tall as the path to my kids way down there at the end!





We still had about 45 minutes until the ranger hike we wanted to go on so we explored the museum for a little while.  We learned how difficult it was for the sequoia seed to make it into a mature tree - a 1 in a billion chance! We all took turns spinning the wheel to see if our seed would survive but none of us were successful.

Our ranger, Zoe, met us outside the visitors center for a hike around the Giant Forest.  We always seem to learn so much so fast during these programs! Our first stop was the junction with the Bear Hill trail. Back in the mid-1900s this was the garbage dump for the park. Seeing an easy meal, the bears would come at nights and get their fill of all the leftovers they could eat. Pretty soon after the park saw interest from the public to watch this so they built stadium seating. It wasn't until the bear got aggressive with eachother - fighting over the food and killing cubs who got in the middle of it - that park rangers put an end to this practice. We have learned this happened at other national parks as well and it appears we are still trying to fix the damage we did.

As we were listening to our ranger tell us this story, Dave points behind her and informs all of us that there is a bear a little up on the hill behind her. At first I thought he was kidding and I'm sure she was too but sure enough he was there! This was another yearling that at first seemed very interested in getting some grubs from a fallen tree but his attention turned to us. We watched and took pictures as he walked around peeking at us over branches and through bushes. Once we were all past him the ranger went back to try to shoo him away. They played peek-a-boo around a large pine tree a couple of times until he finally decided he was done with us.

I was elbowed by the kids as we continued our hike as we passed the ranger from the progam the night before. She was following us!

A few minutes later we were walking around a meadow and the ranger spotted a yellow-bellied marmot on a log next to the trail. This was a great wildlife day for her! He is a little hard to spot in this picture since he is in the sun but take it from the girls' reaction of "Awwwwww!" that he was very cute!










Ryan spotted this giant pine cone next to the trail. She found out it is from a sugar pine - the tallest conifer with the largest pine cones. It was bigger than her head!










I was having a difficult time spotting younger sequoias since their bark isn't red yet and the leaves looked so similar to other trees in the area. Our ranger took the time at our next spot to show everyone the difference between the incense-cedar and sequoia. We also stopped at a grove of what looked like baby sequoias at about 3 feet tall. She estimated they were a young 40 years old. They were in a shady spot so those sun-lovers probably weren't going to survive to the size of an average sequoia.

We took the shuttle back to our area to shop for post cards, stickers and such. Grammie shuttled back to her campground and we spend the afternoon exploring, reading, and playing cards. Ryan decided to eat dinner with us and go to our campground program that sounded fun - Capitalists, Cons, and Conservationists!

Dave and Ryan explored the area behind our campsite to add more pages to her Scavenger Hunt book. She'd brought it along on the trip to add some interesting items but until now she'd refused to do it without Dave doing it with her. For the second project Dave convinced her to work with Laney on an art project with something the found that was broken. They decided on making a stained glass sequoia tree with a piece of plastic they found in the road.



As I was getting ready to cook dinner we had some visitors. Just that afternoon I'd mentioned we hadn't seen any deer since we'd been at this park. Within an hour here was a bachelor group of mule deer. Laney took pictures as we stood and watched them for a few minutes.

As the sun was setting we learned about Hale Tharpe - the original settler in the area and his relationship with the Potwisha Native Americans. We learned about the government's idea to bring camels to the west, fake gold and silver mines, and the Kuwea Colony who first named the Sherman Tree the Karl Marx tree. So much history in one night!