The Tennessee Tree had a fire raging inside it, so the park service climbed a Jack Pine that was close to the big sequoia and then transferred over to the sequoia and hauled up a fire hose and pumped water down into the tree to stop it from smoldering for days and possibly killing the tree.
The bark on these things can be over 2 ft thick and have tannin in the bark. They need ground fires to help clear the ground cover because they like a very sparse understory. Fire helps open the pine cones also.
These trees are very stingy with their pine cones. The cones are only the size of a plum but longer and narrower. The tree will sometimes keep the cones on the tree for 20-30 YEARS before it lets them drop. But I guess if you are a 3000 year old tree, you are entitled to drop your cones, any damn time you want!
On the sign for one of the 2 largest, I frankly can't remember which, it said that in order to get an idea about the volume of wood in these trees, picture taking a bath every day of the year for 27 years and that is how much water/volume the tree can hold. In the late 1800's, two men took 9 days to cut one down and send it to some celebration in Washington. They only sent the shell in pieces and put it together at the event. No one believed that such a thing could exist in nature.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon have been really serious about bears. Apparently the bears have figured out what a cooler is and what it looks like and what it contains. So you can't keep any food in the car. They provide these fancy, difficult to open steel boxes for all food, coolers and waste. They advise to not get more than an arms distance from your food at all times. You are supposed to protect your food and scare the bear away with rocks and things (but don't hit it in the head) because they don't want the bears to learn that they can scare humans away from their food. In the back country they say hanging your food in a bear bag doesn't work because they will climb the tree. They are selling steel cylinders to pack all food in when back packing. So I haven't seen a bear here but you better believe that if a bear approaches my food, I will let him have it. The problem is I can go into my car, but the bears have learned how to break into cars. The last time I actually saw a bear was in NJ at Swartswood State Park but they weren't as aggressive as the bears out here.
I left Kings Canyon and found a KOA Kampground in a town called Coarsegold, CA. It is on the access road to Yosemite. Sequoia grow up at 6-7000 ft and it was too freaking cold after dusk. I have the clothes for cold and the sleeping gear for cold but it is impossible to sit in front of a campfire and read when it is so cold. I have seen enough Sequoias so I came down to 1500 ft and am enjoying hot showers and wifi in coffee shops etc. Getting the next roll of film printed and put on disk. Will mail another package home. I have been collecting pine cones. The Sugar pine has a cone about a foot long and I got myself one!
I am having a perpetual spring. The
red bud were blooming in W VA the first week of my trip and a few days ago I
drove into Kings Canyon and they were just blooming there. The good part of
perpetual spring is that I get to see a huge variety of spring blooming wild
flowers.
I have qualified for tthe Grand Prix of driving
after doing the mountain roads heading into Sequia, going over the pass to the
Trail of 100 Giants, going into Kings Canyon Park and then down into Kings
Canyon itself. These are all windy, switchback roads with suggessted 10 mph on
turns. Have to keep on your own side and watch, watch, watch
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