Five sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, and none of them is General Sherman's rival for fame, though one of them is older. The Grizzly Giant has lost four fifths of its bark to repeated fire and kept growing regardless, at roughly 2,995 years the oldest tree Yosemite maps. Nearby stands the last sequoia tunnel tree left standing anywhere, a fused pair called the Faithful Couple, a fire-carved archway named the Clothespin Tree, and four trees whose roots have grown so entangled they may fall together, the Bachelor and Three Graces.
0 / 5 visités à Yosemite National Park
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Grizzly Giant
Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) · roughly 2,995 years (plus or minus 250) · Lower Mariposa Grove, on the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail, about 1 mile from the Arrival Area
More than four fifths of this tree's bark and sapwood has burned away over the centuries, and it is still alive. The Grizzly Giant has taken fire after fire and kept growing on what was left.
It is the oldest tree in the Mariposa Grove. The park service calls it the 3,000-year-old Grizzly Giant, and the estimate cited on Wikipedia is more careful, 2,995 years give or take 250. A band five centuries wide is as close as anyone gets with a living sequoia, and even its young end is older than almost anything else you can walk up to.
It is not the biggest. A 1990 measurement ranked it the 26th largest living giant sequoia, 63.7 metres tall with a trunk 29.5 metres round. What it has instead is character: the whole tree leans about five and a half metres off vertical, carried on a trunk that fire has stripped of most of its bark.
The publisher James Hutchings named it the Grizzled Giant in 1859. By 1888 people were calling it the Grizzly Giant, and that name stuck.
It anchors the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail, about a mile, or 1.6 kilometres, from the Arrival Area. In season a free shuttle runs there from the Mariposa Grove Welcome Plaza; otherwise it is a walk of about three kilometres each way. Visitors with a disability placard may drive to the Grizzly Giant parking area.
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2
California Tunnel Tree
Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) · not documented · Lower Mariposa Grove, just past the Grizzly Giant on the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail
This is the last giant sequoia tunnel tree still standing anywhere. You can walk through it, and for thirty-seven years horse-drawn stages drove through it.
The Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company cut the passage through its base in 1895. It was meant as an alternative to the more famous Wawona Tunnel Tree: lower down, less often snowbound, and so usable for more of the year. A piece of road engineering that happened to be alive.
In 1932 the Mariposa Grove Road was rerouted away from the Grizzly Giant, and traffic through the tree ended. The old road through it was turned into a footpath, which is what runs through the tunnel today. The Wawona Tunnel Tree fell in 1969. The California Tunnel Tree is the one that outlived the idea.
That is the whole appeal, and it is an uncomfortable one. Nobody would cut a hole through a sequoia now, and there is no better argument for why not than a tree still growing around a doorway made for stagecoaches more than 130 years ago.
It stands just past the Grizzly Giant on the same loop trail, so the two make one short walk. Nobody has published its height, its girth or its age. If you have seen a measurement, tell us.
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3
Faithful Couple
Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) · not documented · Mariposa Grove, on the Mariposa Grove Trail toward the upper grove
Two giant sequoias grew up so close together that their trunks fused at the base, and they have gone on as one. The grove calls them the Faithful Couple, and for once a sentimental name describes the tree exactly.
Fused sequoias are rare. Here two trees took root on the same patch of ground, and at some point in their long lives the gap between them closed. What you see now is one base carrying two trunks, which is why we count it as one tree to stand at rather than two.
It is a named stop on the Mariposa Grove Trail, on the climb toward the upper grove, close to the Clothespin Tree. That makes it part of a longer walk than the Grizzly Giant loop: from the Arrival Area the round trip is around eleven kilometres, and most people fold it into the upper-grove loop rather than walking out and back.
What we cannot tell you is how old the pair is or how big. Neither the park service nor any other source we checked has published a height, a girth or an age for it, and our pin sits on the trail near it rather than at the trunk. If you have measured it, or stood at it with a phone, tell us.
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4
Clothespin Tree
Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) · not documented · Mariposa Grove, on the Mariposa Grove Trail near the Faithful Couple
Nobody cut the hole in this tree. Fire did, over and over, until the trunk opened into a gap you can see from fifty yards off, and the sequoia went on living around it.
One look and the name explains itself. How big the opening is depends on who you ask. Wikipedia gives it as about 21 metres tall and nearly 5 metres wide. Another description puts it nearer 12 metres tall, still wide enough to drive a car through. Both agree on what it is, a fire-carved archway through a living giant, and we have not been able to settle the numbers, so we give you both.
That is the useful thing about this tree. Lower down in the same grove, the California Tunnel Tree shows what people did to a sequoia with saws in 1895. The Clothespin shows what fire does on its own, slowly, and how much of a trunk a sequoia can lose and still stand.
It is a named stop on the Mariposa Grove Trail, on the way to the upper grove, near the Faithful Couple, so the two are best walked together. From the Arrival Area that is the longer walk, around eleven kilometres there and back. No source we checked gives the height or girth of the whole tree, and none gives an age. If you know either, tell us.
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5
Bachelor and Three Graces
Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) · not documented · Lower Mariposa Grove, on the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail
Four giant sequoias stand here with their roots so intertwined that if one of the Three Graces falls, it will probably take the others down with it. They have staked everything on each other.
The Graces are the three that grow very close together. The Bachelor stands a little apart, near enough to belong to the group and far enough off to earn the name. From the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail the four read as one composition, and that is how the grove treats them: a single named stop rather than four separate trees. We do the same.
The arrangement is the whole point. Most famous sequoias are famous alone, for a record or a scar or a hole cut through them. This one is famous for a relationship. Three giants holding on to the same ground is either a picture of mutual support or a single accident waiting to happen, depending on your mood, and the names suggest whoever christened them chose the first reading.
They stand on the lower loop from the Arrival Area, on the same walk as the Grizzly Giant and the California Tunnel Tree, so all three fit into one short outing. We have not found a reliable height, girth or age for any of the four; one figure in circulation repeats the same number in two unrelated units and looks like a slip rather than a measurement. If you have a real one, tell us.
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