General Sherman is not the tallest tree, and it is probably not the oldest in its own grove. It is the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth by volume, about 1,487 cubic metres of trunk, and it stands on the Main Trail in the Giant Forest, half a mile from the parking lot that carries its name. In September 2021, with the KNP Complex Fire burning into the grove, park staff wrapped its base in aluminium foil. It worked.
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Photo: Eric Kilby from Somerville, MA, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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General Sherman Tree
Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) · roughly 2,300 to 2,700 years · Giant Forest, on the Main Trail, about 0.5 miles from the Wolverton/Sherman Tree parking lot
In September 2021, with the KNP Complex Fire burning into the Giant Forest, park staff wrapped the base of this tree in aluminium foil. It worked. The fire came through the grove and the tree was unharmed.
That is roughly the class of trouble a sequoia is built for. This one holds about 1,487 cubic metres of trunk, which makes it the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth, and the number doing the work is girth rather than height. At 83.6 metres it is a fairly ordinary tall sequoia. At about 31 metres round the base it is not.
Its age is genuinely unsettled. Most estimates land between 2,300 and 2,700 years, older ones ran as high as 3,200, and nobody is going to core it to settle the argument, so both figures stay on this page.
It stands on the Main Trail in the Giant Forest, about half a mile from the Sherman Tree parking lot. The walk down is short and part paved; the walk back is the uphill half, and a seasonal shuttle runs for anyone who would rather not. Sequoia National Park charges at the gate. Once you are through it, the most famous tree in the country costs nothing to stand in front of.
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