Lodgepole Campgrounds and Tokopah Valley are 4½ miles by road from Giant Forest. The former is the auto camp favored by those who want to live in an open pine forest and beside running water. The swimming pool here also attracts campers. Two miles above the campgrounds, by trail along the north bank of the Marble Fork, is Tokopah Valley, of cameolike beauty, hewn by glacial action from the ribs of the earth. It is a miniature Yosemite, a narrow valley with towering cliffs, waterfalls, talus, meadows, and moraine. It affords one of the favorite short hikes in the park.
Colony Mill and Admiration Point, a 9-mile side trip by road from Giant Forest, are often overlooked by visitors. The views from Colony Mill Ranger Station are superb, while the mile side trip by trail down to Admiration Point permits a view of the Marble Falls, a 2,000-foot cascade in seven distinct waterfalls.
Hammond photo.
ONE OF SEQUOIA'S MANY UPLAND MEADOWS
Marble Fork Bridge, 4½ miles from Giant Forest, at an elevation of 5,000 feet, is favored by those who like to be near a stream and to fish. It may be reached by road or by the Sunset Trail. This is a favorite retreat with hikers as well as fishermen. The setting is beautiful and the views especially fine. A natural swimming pool adds to its attractiveness.
By parking at the Little Baldy Saddle on the Generals Highway a fine view may be had by hiking a mile and a quarter to the top of the dome. The panorama spread out is a reward worth twice the effort expended.
THE GIANT FOREST DISTRICT
The Giant Forest is the name given the largest grove of sequoias, which is more than a grove. It is a Brobdingnagian forest. Here is found the General Sherman Tree, perhaps the oldest and largest living thing, 36.5 feet at its greatest diameter and 272.4 feet high. There are scores of trees almost as large as the General Sherman, hundreds over 10 feet in diameter, and many thousand from the seedling stage upward.
In his book, Our National Parks, John Muir says, "* * * I entered the sublime wilderness of the Kaweah Basin. This part of the Sequoia belt seemed to me the finest, and I then named it 'The Giant Forest.' It extends, a magnificent growth of giants grouped in pure temple groves, ranged in colonnades along the sides of meadows or scattered among the other trees, from the granite headlands overlooking the hot foothills and plains of the San Joaquin back to within a few miles of the old glacier fountains at an elevation of 5,000 to 8,400 feet above the sea."