Calaveras Big Trees State Park is a state park of California, USA, preserving two groves of giant sequoia trees. It is located 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Arnold, California in the middle elevations of the Sierra Nevada. It has been a major tourist attraction since 1852, when the existence of the trees was first widely reported, and is considered the longest continuously operated tourist facility in California. The area was declared a state park in 1931 and now encompasses 6,498 acres (2,630 ha) in Calaveras and Tuolumne Counties.
Over the years other parcels of mixed conifer forests, including the much larger South Calaveras Grove of Giant Sequoias (purchased in 1954 for $2.8 million USD), have been added to the park to bring the total area to about 26 square kilometres (6,400 acres). The North Grove contains about 100 mature giant sequoias; the South Grove, about 1,000.
The North Grove included the 'Discovery Tree' noted by Augustus T. Dowd in 1852 and felled in 1853, leaving a giant stump which is the only remainder of the tree. It measured 24 feet (7.3 m) in diameter at its base and was determined by ring count to be 1,244 years old when felled. However, the largest tree was believed to be the Mother of the Forest, which was cut down in the mid-nineteenth century and dwarfed any tree alive today.
In addition to the popular North Grove, the park also now includes the South Grove, with a 5-mile (8.0 km) hiking trip through a grove of giant sequoias in their natural setting. The South Grove includes the Louis Agassiz tree, 250 feet (76 m) tall and 25 feet (7.6 m) in diameter 6 feet (1.8 m) above ground, the largest tree in the Calaveras groves. It is named after zoologist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873).
Other attractions in the Park include the Stanislaus River, Beaver Creek, the Lava Bluff Trail and Bradley Trail.
The park also houses two main campgrounds with a total of 129 campsites, six picnic areas and hundreds of miles of established trails.
Other activities include cross-country skiing, evening ranger talks, numerous interpretive programs, environmental educational programs, junior ranger programs, hiking, mountain biking, bird watching and summer school activities for school children. Dogs are welcome in the park on leash in developed areas like picnic sites, campgrounds, roads and fire roads (dirt). Dogs are not allowed on the designated trails, nor in the woods in general.
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Discovery Tree stump and part of the fallen tree
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Discovery Tree stump
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Human compared to tree height
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Tunnel in the Pioneer Cabin Tree, cut in the 1880s to compete for attention with Yosemite's Wawona Tree
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A tree in the North Grove that was harmed by human activity and burned in the 1908 fire
Famous quotes containing the words big, trees, state and/or park:
“The world and life’s too big to pass for a dream,”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;
And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves
And pirates of the universe, shut out
Daily to a more thin and outward rind,
Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes,
The stunted trees look sick, the summer short,
Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay,
And nothing thrives to reach its natural term;”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The mountainous region of the State of Maine stretches from near the White Mountains, northeasterly one hundred and sixty miles, to the head of the Aroostook River, and is about sixty miles wide. The wild or unsettled portion is far more extensive. So that some hours only of travel in this direction will carry the curious to the verge of a primitive forest, more interesting, perhaps, on all accounts, than they would reach by going a thousand miles westward.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in [St. James’s] Park again next Sunday ... because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really, if you had seen how every body was dressed, you would not think that possible.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)