California Trip - Sequoia Nat'l Park

Since this was our first time for some of us to be in this part of California, we decided to see as much as possible in the three day window we had. Our first stop was at Aunt Jo's. She is the wife of my mom's brother, but I had not seen her since I was a child. What an interesting lady, at 88 she gets around quite well with her walker. She lives alone in a comfortable sized singlewide trailer next to her grandson's home. It was a lovely time getting to visit with her.
Sequoia National Park was our next stop. The hike down to General Sherman was really our only place of siteseeing so in many ways we were disappointed that we had taken the time to drive thru this Park.

General Sherman itself was pretty impressive but pictures just can't do it justice. It was so tall you couldn't get the whole into one picture. Even backed up as far as they would allow by the fencing around, you still can't see the top of the tree in the pic. And Rich and I are dwarfed by it's size. They say General Sherman is the largest tree on this planet, with a maximum basal diameter of 36 feet and a height of 275 feet.

On our hike around we came upon a fallen branch, so large we would have had trouble climbing over. The branch had broken into several sections upon impact, completely blocking the path and smashing the fencing along the pathway.

This was the most fascinating part of our day. In passing around the end of one of the section we could get a very close look at the rings of the branch. The outer white ring was about four inches wide but must have had more than 100 rings in just that small section. Is it any wonder they estimate the age of the tree to be over 2000 years?
This last picture is of the location on the big tree from where the branch broke off.

On our way out of the park we found the entrance center had been moved into a nearby parking area because one of the big sequoias was leaning so far across the road there was no telling exactly when it would come down. For safety they had moved the park building instead of taking the tree down, since the park exists to protect the trees. Following the road tho we were unable to see much of the spectacular beauty of the high mountains and rushing rivers for which the park is also known.