Photo Blog - Sequoia Dreaming

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Sadly, today I did not see any bears, but I did see the world's largest, living thing. General Sherman - my new friend - is 2,700 years old. Maybe, if I'm lucky, my life will equate to a sprig on a twig of that Sequoia tree one day.

A newly licensed driver, I took my first roadtrip to Sequoia National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Visalia, California. It was established in 1890 as the second U.S. national park after Yellowstone, and spans 404,051 acres (1,635 km).

The park is most famous for its giant Sequoia trees (although it is also home to about 40 other species) - including the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth in terms of wood volume. General Sherman grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five out of the ten largest trees in the world. There is even a fallen Sequoia that you can drive a car right through.

It's picture-book country and I swear the trees were talking to me. I cannot even imagine how anyone could ever have chopped a single one of these down. It must've felt like murder.

Photos: Courtesy of Erin McCarthy