00:00:57
150 years ago there were very
few things in the world
00:01:01
that could compare to the
size of the Giant Sequoia.
00:01:07
Now we have skyscrapers,
we have statues,
00:01:09
like the Statue of Liberty,
you know,
00:01:11
so our sense of what
is truly immense
00:01:13
has changed
over time.
00:01:17
But I think that even though we
have this exaggerated sense
00:01:19
of what constitutes the large or
the magnificent or the vast,
00:01:23
when you're in the
presence of a Giant Sequoia,
00:01:25
I think that we adjust
ourselves to its scale,
00:01:29
and once we make
that adjustment,
00:01:31
you can easily be
overwhelmed by it.
00:01:33
I mean, it's not just
that there is one,
00:01:35
there's a
forest of them,
00:01:37
you know, so it's
pretty impressive.
00:01:42
It's rare for a Sequoia
to be 300 feet tall,
00:01:45
they're usually not quite as
tall as a football field
00:01:47
is long, but they can
easily be 20-30 feet
00:01:51
in diameter at
ground level.
00:01:53
As you get closer
to these trees,
00:01:55
it's amazing how large and
impressive they truly are.
00:01:59
These trees are
thousands of years old,
00:02:02
whether they're
closer to 1, or 2,
00:02:03
or 3,000 years of age,
00:02:06
it's hard to wrap your
mind around the time
00:02:08
that these individual trees have
been on the face of the earth.
00:02:12
We've got a lot
of precipitation.
00:02:14
We've got deep
glacial soils here.
00:02:16
We've got the
western aspect,
00:02:18
which gives them a
lot of warmth,
00:02:20
but squeezes the clouds as they
come off the Pacific Ocean,
00:02:23
and it's just the
prefect condition
00:02:24
for growing the biggest
trees in the world.
00:02:27
There is people visiting this
area from all over the world,
00:02:30
and they come to
the Mariposa Grove
00:02:32
and they think all
the trees are big.
00:02:34
But when you come to
a sequoia forest
00:02:37
or a lot of areas throughout
Yosemite National Park,
00:02:40
you can be dwarfed by
Sugar Pine trees,
00:02:42
you can be dwarfed
by Ponderosa Pine,
00:02:44
and really large
other species,
00:02:47
other than just
Giant Sequoia trees.
00:02:50
So this is certainly a big
tree by anyone's measure,
00:02:54
not as big as the biggest
Sugar Pines in the world,
00:02:57
but in any setting, a
magnificent specimen,
00:03:00
but just dwarfed when you
look over your shoulder
00:03:04
at the Giant
Sequoias here.
00:03:07
So that magnificent Sugar
Pine we were looking at,
00:03:10
viewing it from here in the
shadow of this Giant Sequoia,
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