One of California’s oldest tourist attractions is also one of its saddest, a sequoia stump
California’s Calaveras Big Trees State Park has some of the tallest giant sequoias in the US, but two of its most magnificent are no more
Entering the colossal grove of giant sequoias in Calaveras Big Trees State Park to find the stump of the Discovery Tree is like creeping through a beautiful mansion, looking for a body.
From the car park off Northern California’s Highway 4 – where yellow school buses dusted with pine needles unload excited fifth graders – one of the most stunning hikes in California leads into the forest.
The gentle 2.4km (1.5-mile) North Grove loop passes by towering sequoias, some wider than a house, and older than the Roman empire.
There are the Siamese Twins: two sequoias that grew so close together they form a single mass for the first 15 metres (50 feet), before splaying towards the clouds.
There is Old Bachelor, an ancient gnarled specimen whose upper reaches are dead and may soon fall back to earth.