Mariposa Grove | |
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Map | |
Mariposa Grove is located at the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park | |
Geography | |
Location | Yosemite National Park, California,United States |
Coordinates | 37°30′50″N119°35′54″W / 37.51389°N 119.59833°W |
Elevation | 5,740–6,730 ft (1,750–2,050 m) |
Ecology | |
Dominant tree species | Sequoiadendron giganteum |
Mariposa Grove is a sequoia grove located near Wawona, California, United States, in the southernmost part of Yosemite National Park. It is the largest grove of giant sequoias in the park, with several hundred mature examples of the tree. Two of its trees are among the 30 largest giant sequoias in the world.
The Mariposa Grove was first visited by non-natives in 1857 when Galen Clark and Milton Mann found it. They named the grove after Mariposa County, California, where the grove is located. [1] Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, ceding Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the state of California. Criticism of stewardship over the land led to the state's returning the grove to federal control with the establishment of Yosemite National Park.
The grove closed on July 6, 2015, for a restoration project and reopened on June 15, 2018. [2] The Mariposa Grove Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The grove was threatened by the Washburn Fire in July 2022. [4] [5] However, several decades of intentional controlled burns and other forms of fuels reduction enabled fire fighters to save the giant trees, even while the fire itself was impossible to prevent spreading into Yosemite National Park. [3]
Fire is not the only threat to the survival of the giant sequoias. Climate change has already caused the deaths of other conifer trees within and surrounding the grove. [6] [7] An ominous sign of sequoia distress was the grove's massive and unprecedented release of seeds in 2022 from the multi-year crop of cones that otherwise would have opened only if the fire penetrated the grove. Seed release was deemed futile because seeds can establish only on ground only where the soil itself is fully exposed. [8] Signs of climate distress in the Mariposa Grove are exceeded by climate-induced deaths of giant sequoias in groves managed by the National Park Service southward in the Sierra Mountains. [9]
The giant sequoia named Grizzly Giant is between probably 1900–2400 years old: the oldest tree in the grove. [10] It has a volume of 34,010 cubic feet (963 m3), and is counted as the 25th largest tree in the world. It is 210 feet (64 m) tall, and has a heavily buttressed base with a basal circumference of 28 m (92 ft) or a diameter of 30 feet (9.1 m); above the buttresses at 2.4 m above ground, the circumference is only 23 m. Grizzly Giant's first branch from the base is 2 m (6 ft) in diameter. Another tree, the Wawona Tree, had a tunnel cut through it in the nineteenth century that was wide enough for horse-drawn carriages and early automobiles to drive through. Weakened by the large opening at its base, the tree fell down in a storm in 1969.
Some of the trees in the grove are:
Mariposa Grove Museum | |
Nearest city | Wawona, California |
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Coordinates | 37°30′50″N119°35′54″W / 37.51389°N 119.59833°W |
Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
Built | 1930 |
Architect | National Park Service |
Architectural style | Rustic |
NRHP reference No. | 78000381 [11] |
Added to NRHP | December 1, 1978 |
The Mariposa Grove Museum, also known as the Mariposa Grove Cabin, is a large cabin built in 1930. It sits in the shadow of two prominent giant sequoia trees: General Grant and General Sheridan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. [11] [12]
The museum features numerous historic photographs and details the history of Mariposa Grove. Restrooms are inside. [13]
Yosemite National Park is a national park in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers 759,620 acres in four counties – centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada.
Wawona is a census-designated place in Mariposa County, California, United States. The population was 111 at the 2020 census.
Calaveras Big Trees State Park is a state park of California, United States, 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.
General Grant Grove, a section of the greater Kings Canyon National Park, was established by the U.S. Congress in 1890 and is located in Fresno County, California. The primary attraction of General Grant Grove is the giant sequoia trees that populate the grove. General Grant Grove's most well-known tree is called General Grant, which is 267 ft (81 m) tall and the third-largest known tree in the world. The General Grant tree is over 1,500 years old and is known as the United States' national Christmas tree. General Grant Grove consists of 154 acres (0.62 km2) and is geographically isolated from the rest of Kings Canyon National Park.
Nelder Grove, located in the western Sierra Nevada within the Sierra National Forest in Madera County, California, is a Giant sequoia grove that was formerly known as Fresno Grove. The grove is a 1,540-acre (6.2 km2) tract containing 54 mature Giant Sequoia trees, the largest concentration of giant sequoias in the Sierra National Forest. The grove also contains several historical points of interest, including pioneer cabins and giant sequoia stumps left by 19th century loggers.
Human habitation in the Sierra Nevada region of California reaches back 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Historically attested Native American populations, such as the Sierra Miwok, Mono and Paiute, belong to the Uto-Aztecan and Utian phyla. In the mid-19th century, a band of Native Americans called the Ahwahnechee lived in Yosemite Valley. The California Gold Rush greatly increased the number of non-indigenous people in the region. Tensions between Native Americans and white settlers escalated into the Mariposa War. As part of this conflict, settler James Savage led the Mariposa Battalion into Yosemite Valley in 1851, in pursuit of Ahwaneechees led by Chief Tenaya. The California state military forces burned the tribe's villages, destroyed their food stores, killed the chief's sons, and forced the tribe out of Yosemite. Accounts from the Mariposa Battalion, especially from Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, popularized Yosemite Valley as a scenic wonder.
Galen Clark was a British North America-born American conservationist and writer. He is known as the first European American to discover the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia trees, and is notable for his role in gaining legislation to protect it and the Yosemite area, and for 24 years serving as Guardian of Yosemite National Park.
The Wawona Hotel is a historic hotel located within southern Yosemite National Park, in California. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Chandelier Tree in Drive-Thru Tree Park is a 276-foot (84 m) tall coast redwood tree in Leggett, California with a 6-foot-wide (1.8 m) by 6-foot-9-inch-high (2.06 m) hole cut through its base to allow a car to drive through. Its base measures 16 ft (4.9 m) diameter at breast height (chest-high). A historic sign put up in or before the 1930s claims a height of 315 feet high and 21 feet wide, but a contemporary measurement by a Certified Arborist experienced with tall redwoods and using a laser rangefinder found the tree to be 276 feet high and 16 feet in diameter. It is unknown if the tree was topped by Nature in between the measurements.
The Wawona Tree, also known as the Wawona Tunnel Tree, was a famous giant sequoia that stood in Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, United States, until February 1969. It had a height of 227 feet (69 m) and was 26 feet (7.9 m) in diameter at the base.
The Wawona Tunnel is a highway tunnel in Yosemite National Park. It, and Tunnel View just beyond its east portal, were completed in 1933.
The Grizzly Giant is a giant sequoia in Yosemite National Park's Mariposa Grove. It has been measured many times; in 1990 Wendell Flint calculated its volume at 34,005 cubic feet (962.9 m3), making it the 26th-largest living giant sequoia.
Yosemite National Park is located in the central Sierra Nevada of California. Three wilderness areas are adjacent to Yosemite: the Ansel Adams Wilderness to the southeast, the Hoover Wilderness to the northeast, and the Emigrant Wilderness to the north.
The Pioneer Cabin Tree, also known as The Tunnel Tree, was a giant sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, California. It was considered one of the U.S.'s most famous trees, and drew thousands of visitors annually. It was estimated to have been more than 1,000 years old, and measured 33 feet (10 m) in diameter; its exact age and height were not known. The tree was topped before 1859. It fell and shattered during a storm on January 8, 2017.
The Railroad Fire was a wildfire that burned in between the communities of Sugar Pine and Fish Camp in the Sierra National Forest in California, United States. The fire was reported on August 29, 2017 and burned 12,407 acres (50 km2) before it was fully contained on October 24. It occurred during the historic 2011–2017 California drought. The cause of the fire remains unknown.
The Ferguson Fire was a major wildfire in the Sierra National Forest, Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park in California in the United States. The fire was reported on July 13, 2018, burning 96,901 acres (392 km2), before it was 100% contained on August 19, 2018. Interior areas of the fire continued to smolder and burn until September 19, 2018, when InciWeb declared the fire to be inactive. The Ferguson Fire was caused by the superheated fragments of a faulty vehicle catalytic converter igniting vegetation. The fire, which burned mostly in inaccessible wildland areas of the national forest, impacted recreational activities in the area, including in Yosemite National Park, where Yosemite Valley and Wawona were closed. The Ferguson Fire caused at least $171.2 million in damages, with a suppression cost of $118.5 million and economic losses measuring $52.7 million. Two firefighters were killed and nineteen others were injured in the fire.
Nelder is a giant sequoia located within the Nelder Grove of Sequoia National Forest in California. It is the largest tree in Nelder Grove, the 23rd largest giant sequoia in the world, and could be considered the 22nd largest depending on how badly Ishi Giant atrophied during the Rough Fire in 2015.
The Washburn Fire was a wildfire that burned in Yosemite National Park near the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. The fire was reported on July 7, 2022, in the lower Mariposa Grove area near the Washburn trail, for which the fire is named. The fire quickly attracted national attention due in part to the role the Mariposa Grove played in the establishment of Yosemite National Park and the National Park Service.
The iconic grove of giant and ancient sequoia trees in California's Yosemite National Park is no longer under direct threat from the wildfire still burning through a southern section of the park and the nearby Sierra National Forest... foresters and ecologists say a half-century of intentional burning or 'prescribed fire' practices in and around the area dramatically reduced forest 'fuel' there, allowing the blaze to pass through the grove with the trees unscathed.
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