Weave the Web

Trees grow out of the air, not out of the ground.  That's the thing to remember when looking at Sequoias. If you don't know that when standing in front of 6,000 tons of wood, it becomes unfathomable where they could have come from.  They aren’t easy to get to either.  Sequoia National Park is tucked away in the Sothern tip of the Sierra Nevadas.  Those are the mountains slicing through California that make it ever so easy to run north or south, but almost impossible to cut directly east or west without going several hours out of your way. 

Griffin turned 13 this year.  The age were you stop being a kid and start being a person.  So this year we decided to show him a bit more of the world he is about to inherit from us Gen-Xers.  We flew out to San Francisco with a twelve year old to spend a few days with Nannan and had two weeks to get from there to Las Vegas (via the Grand Canyon) at which point a thirteen year old would fly home to New England. 

The two ends of the journey were easy. The Golden Gate, Alcatraz and Ghirardelli chocolate at one end,  the Grand Canyon to the Hover dam and down into Sin City for all you can eat buffets at the other.  The adventure of the trip lay between.  The easy route is to head north east from SF through Yosemite and then down across Death Valley. The other option is to head south down the whole length of the Great Valley Grasslands until the Sierra Nevadas run out of steam and all that is left to block you path east are giant trees. Allison and I had seen Yosemite before, so this time we took the road less traveled, headed down Interstate 5, cut across to 99 north of Fresno, and the next day found ourselves looking up at Moro Rock while winding up a two lane switchback in less than a tenth of the traffic I remember dealing with at Yosemite.

There are any numbers of things in this world that pictures just cannot do justice to.  These trees catch you by surprise about half way up to the park.  After the road leaves the mountain's edge and cuts back away from cliffs into the forest you start to catch glimpses of tan silos of thick wood standing stark against the richer browns of the ponderosa pine, cedar, and fir trees you are used to seeing at that altitude. 

Trees grow out of the air, not out of the ground. You can't take 6,000 tons of the earth and just push it up into the air.  Trees breathe in CO2, and breathe out oxygen (O2).  The "C", carbon, gets left behind, and year by year that carbon is manipulated atom by atom into the form and structure and body of a tree. 

During the first 75 years in the life of a giant sequoia it may increase in diameter at an average rate of an inch every 3 to 5 years, but these are not "young" 75 year old trees.  Some veterans may require more than 20 years to get a diameter increase of just an inch.  The largest of the trees we saw were easily over 2,000 years old.  The General Sherman is estimated at 2,500 years old. 

I think what I most appreciated about this park was how quiet it was.  The crowds were thin, and you can wander down deserted trails and lean up against a plant that started its life when Alexander the Great was still training his elephants.  If you happen to have a couple of dozen friends along for the ride, you might even be able to form a chain that can wrap around the base.  My preference though is to be alone.  Lie back, be as still as you can, and see if you can hear them breathe.