III
THE SEQUOIA AND THE GENERAL GRANT NATIONAL PARKS
The Sequoia National Park has a crowded luxuriance of wild flowers. It abounds in varied bird-life and has a number of wild sheep, bears, deer, and other animals. It has lakes, cañons, and glaciated mountains. But the supreme attraction of this and the neighboring General Grant Park is the sequoia or Big Tree. Nowhere else on earth are trees found that are so large or so imposing. In places the Big Trees are attractively mixed with other forest trees. Besides the large aged trees, there are middle-aged ones, young trees, and seedlings.
The General Grant Park has a sequoia that is thirty-five feet in diameter. This Park, like the Sequoia, was established principally to preserve Big Trees. Both became National Parks in 1890, chiefly through the efforts of George W. Stewart. The General Grant Park has an area of four square miles, the Sequoia Park of two hundred and thirty-seven square miles.
The proposition to enlarge the Sequoia National Park should meet with early consummation. The region would then embrace about twelve hundred square miles, including the present General Grant and Sequoia Parks and Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the United States, exclusive of Alaska. Near Mount Whitney are a number of other peaks. In fact, the region is the highest and most rugged section of California.
Says Gilbert H. Grosvenor, editor of "The National Geographic Magazine":—
Switzerland, the playground of Europe, visited annually (until 1915) by more than one hundred thousand Americans, cannot compare in attractiveness with the High Sierra of central California. Nothing in the Alps can rival the famous Yosemite Valley, which is as unique as the Grand Cañon. The view from the summit of Mount Whitney surpasses that from any of the peaks of Switzerland. There are no cañons in Switzerland equal to those of the Kern and the King Rivers, which contain scores of waterfalls and roaring streams, any one of which in Europe would draw thousands of visitors annually. Many of the big yellow and red pines, of the juniper and cedar, eclipse the trees of Switzerland as completely as these pines are eclipsed by the giant redwoods.
And then, as to birds and flowers, the High Sierra so excels the Alps that there is no comparison. Never will the writer forget the melodies of the birds and the luxuriance of the meadows passed in the marches from Redwood Meadow to Mineral King, and then up over Franklin Pass; the fields of blue, red, yellow, orange, white, and purple flowers, all graceful and fragrant, or the divine dignity of the great Siberian Plateau, nearly eleven thousand feet above the sea, and yet carpeted from end to end with blue lupine and tiny flowers.
From the educational point of view, the High Sierra so surpasses the Alps that again no comparison can be made.
Magnificent is the King's River Cañon. The Kern River Cañon is seven thousand feet deep; this is equal, if not superior, to the depth of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. Here is the celebrated Tehipitee Dome. There are numerous lakes, streams, waterfalls, and meadows. This was the original home of the golden trout. Besides the King's and Kern Rivers, there is the Kaweah.
The glaciation of this region is on a stupendous scale and is of extraordinary interest. The peculiar topography, the heavy snowfall, and the character of the rocks all combined to cause the Ice King to execute wonderful works in this Park and to leave behind a splendid record. From the summit of this high region one looks into Death Valley, less than one hundred miles away, which is the lowest point in the United States, a section of it being three hundred to four hundred feet below sea-level. This region includes the southern extension of the High Sierra in California, is near the Nevada line, and is about one hundred miles north of Los Angeles.