What is the oldest tree in Kings Canyon National Park?
Kings Canyon's oldest mapped tree is the Boole Tree, a giant sequoia estimated at over 2,000 years, though it technically stands on U.S. Forest Service land in Converse Basin, just outside the park's own boundary. Inside the park itself, General Grant, the park's most famous tree and a declared national shrine, has no age more solid than one recent estimate of roughly 1,650 years. The Boole Tree also holds a record of its own: at 34.4 metres round, it has the greatest circumference of any known sequoia, wider than General Grant.
General Grant Grove and Converse Basin are the two clusters mapped here, a few miles apart on Highway 180 north of Grant Grove Village. General Grant and the Robert E. Lee both stand in Grant Grove itself, reached by a short paved loop from the Grant Grove parking area; Kings Canyon's own entrance fee covers this stop. The Boole Tree stands apart, in Converse Basin, a grove once the largest stand of giant sequoias on Earth until loggers cut down roughly 8,000 of them between 1897 and 1907. The Boole Tree was the one left standing, on land the U.S. Forest Service manages rather than the National Park Service, so there is no entrance fee there, only a seasonal, high-clearance access road and a loop trail of a few kilometres. None of the three trees has a settled age: the Boole Tree's over 2,000 years is the most confident figure on this page, General Grant's roughly 1,650 years comes from a single recent estimate, and the Robert E. Lee has no published age at all.
One of Kings Canyon National Park's trees also appears in The Tallest Trees We Have Measured, a themed collection spanning several cities.