The Giant Forest, famed for its giant sequoia trees, is within Sequoia National Park. This montane forest, situated at over 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above mean sea level in the western Sierra Nevada of California, covers an area of 1,880 acres (7.6 km2). The Giant Forest is the most accessible of all giant sequoia groves, as it has over 40 miles (64 km) of hiking trails.
Five of the ten most massive trees on the planet are located within the Giant Forest. The largest of these, the General Sherman tree, measures 36.5 feet (11.1 m) across the base. The giant sequoia tree is the most massive species of tree on earth, and one of just five tree species documented to grow to 300 feet in height (the others are Coast Redwood, Eucalyptus Regnans, Douglas fir, and Sitka Spruce). It is also among the longest-lived of all trees on the planet.
Read more about Giant Forest: The Area, Giant Forest Village, History, Access, Noteworthy Trees
Famous quotes containing the words giant and/or forest:
“Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long- wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and bushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not support a hare. Our woods teem with them both.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)