You can walk around the Yosemite Valley, look up and see some spectacular sights like El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Glacier Point, and Brideveil Falls, and with all the magnificence of those natural wonders, it’s easy to look past the equally impressive living things standing between you and those well known Yosemite sightseeing attractions. But there are some of the largest trees in the world here and at nearly three hundred feet, they might be blocking you view on many occasions but they should be the view as well.
Yosemite has two giant sequoia redwood groves in the heart of the Yosemite Valley: the Merced and Tuolumne Groves. But if you seek the greatest number of trees in a grove, tallest, oldest and largest circumference in your ancient trees, you will need to travel to the park’s third grove, Mariposa. While the Mariposa Grove is within Yosemite National Park – at the southern end, it is about thirty-five miles from the Yosemite Valley. But once there, you will find a grove of 200 giant sequoia redwood trees, which is the largest collection within the park. Like Yosemite’s more famous sightseeing attractions, these natural wonders also have names for the most significant ones such as Fallen Monarch, Faithful Couple, Telescope, and at the far end, Galen Clark, named after the conservationist who lived amongst the trees in Mariposa Grove and gave tours one hundred and fifty years ago. It was his efforts that led John Muir and Abraham Lincoln to preserve Mariposa Grove as a national treasure.
The Grizzly Giant is Mariposa Grove’s most famous tree with a circumference of 100 feet and might be the world’s oldest tree at more than 2,700 years old. Named after Sequoyah Gist, a Cherokee Indian, these trees will reach 300 feet in Yosemite (though the coastal redwood can reach 400 feet) and reportedly need 1,000 gallons per day. The giant redwood sequoia trees actually need occasional fires to keep the ground cover cleared so that new trees can sprout. So how do these trees manage to survive for thousands of years, through regular fires? They use two primary defense mechanisms: their height keeps their sensitive limbs out of reach of flames, and their bark of up to two feet thick offers a protective coating much like a flame retardant suit. Be sure to take a closer look at Yosemite’s other natural wonders the next time you are through the park.
