Spend time in the presence of California’s awe-inspiring giant sequoias

California is home to the largest trees on Earth, the giant sequoia.

Standing under these massive organisms, you can’t help but be filled with wonder at how something can be so old and so enormous, yet so graceful.

They’re not the tallest trees in the world (that distinction goes to the coast redwoods in Northern California and Southwestern Oregon) or the widest (that would be the Montezuma cypress in Mexico), but by volume, they are the biggest. And they can be visited at Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, roughly five hours north of Southern California in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

A winding mountain road snakes into the forest, leading to a place of perfect conditions for giant sequoias to thrive. These trees grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada between 4,000 and 8,000 feet in elevation.

The trees, also known as Sierra redwoods, once grew throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but today only about 73 groves survive in California, in an area about the size of Cleveland, according to Save the Redwoods League.

The largest by volume, the General Sherman tree, is just over 274 feet tall and 102 feet around, and is estimated to be 2,200 years old, according to the National Park Service.

Visitors wait in line to take the requisite selfie with General Sherman, but other magnificent sights abound at Sequoia National Park. The park boasts 40 giant sequoia groves, ranging from one to tens of thousands of trees per grove. The Giant Forest boasts more large sequoias than any other grove.

Hiking trails range from one- to two-hour hikes to full-day hikes and include not only the trees, but lush meadows, a climbable granite dome and historic sights. Moro Rock is one of many granite domes in the park. A climb up 350 concrete and stone steps, through sometimes narrow passages, can feel unnerving, but once above the trees’ canopy at the top, intrepid hikers are rewarded with stunning 360-degree views of the surrounding mountains and forests.

Crystal Cave, while not as easy to access, takes visitors back in geological time. Tickets must be purchased online in advance, and a slow, bumpy road leads to the parking lot. The park recommends allowing an hour to get to the parking lot from the Foothills Visitor Center entrance.

A steep half-mile trail takes you to a spider web gate, but once there, a naturalist leads a 50-minute tour of this marble cavern. Water runs underfoot and drips from the ceiling, continuing the process that has been going on for millions of years. The tour takes visitors about a half-mile into the three miles of known caverns.

The park has many other attractions, too. Among them:

• Visitors can drive through Tunnel Log, which was carved out of a fallen sequoia in 1937. The tunnel is 17 feet wide and 8 feet high.
• Tharp’s Log is a fallen sequoia named after Hale Tharp, the first non-Native American settler who in 1861 built a cabin in the trunk of a fallen sequoia. A bed, table and fireplace are all that’s left inside the burned-out tree trunk.
• Big Stump Grove is a reminder of the fact that giant sequoias were not always protected. Logging reached its peak in the late 1800s, but the immense job of felling and processing the trees protected many of the more remote sequoias.
• The Big Stump Loop Trail takes visitors past the remains of the giants. One of the biggest, known as the Mark Twain tree, was 16 feet in diameter when it was cut down in 1891. A cross-section of it went to the American Museum of Natural History. Today, visitors can climb a small staircase and walk on top of the stump.

Sequoia National Park was established on Sept. 25, 1890, and (after Yellowstone) is America’s second national park. It was established to protect the giant sequoia trees from logging, according to the National Park Service.

Protection of the new park fell to the U.S. Army until 1913, before the start of World War I, and the park appointed its first superintendent. In 1940, Kings Canyon National Park was established, and the two parks have been managed together ever since.

Today, more than 1.5 million people visit the parks each year.

Know before you go

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

Free shuttles: nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/parktransit.htm

Crystal Cave: 2025 season continues through Sept. 7; $20, reservations at sequoiaparksconservancy.org/crystal-cave

Moro Rock: Accessed off Generals Highway or by shuttle bus

General Sherman tree: Accessed off Generals Highway or by shuttle bus