sequoia national monument | Russel Ray Photos

When Jim and I went to the May 3 fundraiser for Cat House on the Kings, we came back through Kings Canyon National Park, Sequoia National Park, Sequoia National Monument, and Sequoia National Forest. The whole area is full of tall, massive trees, specifically redwoods and sequoias.

The loop road we drove took us directly through the Giant Forest of sequoias, where five of the ten most massive living organisms are located. I had to take twelve pictures and then have Photoshop stitch them together to get just a part of the Giant Forest:

The giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) averages about 275 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter. The tallest sequoia measured 311 feet tall and the widest measured 56 feet in diameter.

I usually don’t like blogs that have pictures that are so big that you have to scroll to see all of a picture and never can get all of a picture on your screen. However, I thought it would be fun to include here a big picture of the big trees: