SEQUOIA Rules and Regulations 1920

SEQUOIA AND GENERAL GRANT NATIONAL PARKS.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks are in western central California. The former was created by the act of September 25, 1890, and contains 252 square miles, or 161,597 acres; the latter was established October 1, 1890, and contains 4 square miles, or 2,560 acres. They are situated on the Sierra Nevada's warmest slopes and contain some of the most luxuriant forests of America. They are the big-tree national parks in every sense. Here all native growths attain their greatest girth and height. The pines and firs and cedars are the noblest of their kind. Their open glades are gardens of wild flowers.

But their chief glory is the tree after which the parks are named, the Sequoia Washingtoniana, popularly known and widely celebrated as the Big Tree of California. Sequoia National Park contains more than 1,000,000 sequoia trees of all sizes, 12,000 of which exceed 10 feet in diameter. Among these are many monsters of great age. The General Sherman Tree, most celebrated of all, is 279.9 feet high with a diameter of 36.5 feet. It is the biggest and the oldest living thing. The Abraham Lincoln Tree is 270 feet high with a diameter of 31 feet. The William McKinley Tree is 290 feet high, with a diameter of 28 feet.

These trees occur in 12 groves scattered through the park. The largest and most famous of these is the Giant Forest, in whose 3,200 acres grow a half million sequoia trees, of which 5,000 exceed 10 feet in diameter. Here is found the General Sherman Tree and many of his peers. The Giant Forest was until recently the terminus of the automobile road from Visalia and the site of the public camp. This road, however, has now been completed to a point on the Marble Fork River several miles beyond the forest.

The country is one of the most beautiful in America, abounding in splendid streams, noble valleys, striking ridges, and towering mountains. An ever-increasing number of campers-out inhabit these forests during the long rainless summers. There is excellent trout fishing.

Six miles away, across the mountain, valley, and forest, lies the General Grant National Park. It was created to preserve for the public benefit the General Grant Tree and its splendid group of fellows. In this grove, which is as luxuriant in all growing things as the Giant Forest, are 10,000 sequoia trees, 190 of which exceed 10 feet in diameter. The General Grant Tree, which is second only to the General Sherman Tree in age and size, is 264 feet high and has a diameter of over 35 feet. A distinguished neighbor is the George Washington Tree, which is only 9 feet less in height and 6 feet less in diameter. The General Sherman and General Grant Trees are both nearly 4,000 years old.

LIVING UNDER THE SEQUOIAS.

Comfortable camps are maintained in both the Sequoia and General Grant National Parks.

Both also are very popular among campers-out, who come in automobiles and set up tents upon sites designated by the superintendent. One camp ground, sufficiently large to accommodate all of the park visitors, is maintained in the General Grant National Park. In the Sequoia National Park there are seven camp grounds and five fenced pastures for tourists' horses.

The Giant Forest tourist camp now comprises an area of approximately 100 acres, all covered by the great Sequoia grove.

A new camp ground has been established at Cedar Creek for the benefit of those individuals who for any reason are unable to make the trip into the Giant Forest in one day.

In all instances camp grounds, fire wood, and water are furnished free of cost.

A wooden stairway and iron handrailing 346 feet in length has been constructed to the top of Moro Rock, whereby persons can ascend to the top of the rock with safety and obtain an unobstructed view of the best mountain scenery of the park.

Crystal Cave, a limestone cave remarkable for its size, the number and variety of its chambers, and the richness of its fantastic decorations, was discovered in the Sequoia National Park in 1918. A trail has been built to its entrance, but until proper lighting facilities can be provided it will be closed to the public.

THE PROPOSED ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK.

North and east of the Sequoia National Park, and easily accessible by trail from the Giant Forest, lies a large area of mountain-top country as distinguished in majesty as the park is in luxuriance. Its eastern boundary of about 70 miles is the very crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including Mount Whitney, whose elevation of 14,501 feet is the loftiest in the United States. Along this magnificent crest lies a massing of mountain peaks of indescribable grandeur, for Mount Whitney is no towering elevation, but merely a granite climax; its peak is a little higher than its neighbors, that is all.

Eastward from this crest descend superbly tumbles slopes rich in the grandest scenery of America and the world, merging, below timberline, into innumerable lake-studded valleys which converge into the extraordinary valleys of the Kings and the Kern Rivers. Two branches of the Kings River flow through valleys destined, when known, to a celebrity second only to Yosemite Valley; one of these is the Tehipite Valley, the other the Kings River Canyon. These lie north of the Sequoia National Park, while on its east lies still another valley of future world celebrity, the Kern Canyon.

This area which, united with the present Sequoia National Park, would make a national park of 1,600 square miles, constitutes a total of supreme scenic magnificence. It would be unexcelled even in America for sublimity and unequaled anywhere for rich variety. It is penetrated by trails and affords, with its three foaming rivers, its thousands of streams, its hundreds of lakes, its splendid forests, occasional meadows, castellated valleys, inspiring passes, and lofty glacier-shouldered summits, the future camping-out resort of many thousands yearly.

The Tehipite Valley and the Kings River Canyon, which are more accessible now than the Kern Canyon, have striking nobility of scenery. The walls of both are as sheer as and are often loftier than Yosemite's. The rivers which flow through them are glacier-run torrents of innumerable cascades and waterfalls, lined to the edge with forests and full of fighting trout.

Both valleys are guarded, like Yosemite, with gigantic rocks. The Tehipite Dome in the Tehipite Valley, and the Grand Sentinel in the Kings River Canyon, must be classed with Yosemite's greatest. The Tehipite Valley has grandeur for its keynote, as the Yosemite Valley has supreme beauty. The Kings River Canyon, with Paradise Valley a few miles upstream is destined, at no great lapse of time, to become the summer resort of innumerable campers.

But, pending the disposition of this project by Congress, this noble country is accessible through the General Grant and Sequoia National Parks to all. Parkhood will develop its trails and render its use easy and comfortable in many ways.

ADMINISTRATION.

The representative of the National Park Service in charge of Sequoia and General Grant National Parks is the superintendent, Mr. Walter Fry. His address is Three Rivers, Calif. Chief Ranger Milo S. Decker is in immediate charge of General Grant Park.

The tourist season extends from May 24 to October 10. However, owing to the high elevation of the parks where the main tourist camps are situated, it is advisable for tourists to visit them between June 15 and October 1, as there is seldom rain or snow during that period and the atmosphere is usually cold and clear.