Calaveras Big Trees State Park

After relaxing in the morning and watching some of our copied Olympics coverage, we headed out to the Calaveras Big Trees State Park. This was the trip we started to take last week but turned around due to the threat of snow in the higher elevations. The State Park is only 23 miles from our campground but most of the trip is uphill. It goes from a 2100' elevation to over 4,000' in those 23 miles. It was a good thing we didn't go last week since there still was quite a bit of snow in the park, as you can see from the pictures. In fact, the entire South Grove was still closed as a result of the snow. We started out walking the North Grove Trail and because we were wearing our tennis shoes, had to go back and get the car because of the snow. We drove around the portion of road that was open and did see some unbelievable trees. It started out with some smaller trees such as the one below:

We saw some very huge trees although the largest ones were in areas that were closed because of the snow. The picture below shows how tall they grow - the largest ones can be 300 feet tall:

The tree that was the original "discovery" tree was cut down shortly after the discovery of the trees. A hunter was chasing a wounded grizzly bear and stumbled upon a tree that was about 30' in diameter. He became the founder of the grove and had the big one cut down around 1852. Based on the rings of the tree, it started growing around 600 A.D. Below is a picture of Josie standing on the stump of this tree:

A log that was cut from this tree lies next to it. It would have been an experience to watch them cut down this tree with the tools they had in 1852.

We will plan a return trip to this park after the snow melts. It is fairly close to us and we want to see the larger trees in the other "South" Grove. The snow will melt quickly if it keeps warming up like it has this week.

Today is our last day off before going back to work tomorrow. We talked about going into Modesto, about an hour away, to go to Costco to pick up some stuff and go to the phone store, to once again take Josie's phone in for the same charging problem. There is also some laundry that needs to be done, so the schedule for the day is still up in the air. Until tomorrow...