the largest tree on the planet
on the whole planet
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enormous
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this is amazing
look at that
they're huge
oh my gosh you just keep looking
That's General Sherman right in front of you
the largest tree on Earth
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we both grown-up kind of
in the rocky mountains
like hills of South Dakota
The trees like aren't like these there
so and we been to Tennessee in the smokey mountains
and we would never seen trees like these
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well hello everybody
and welcome back
to our channel
today I am very excited because
today we're in California
and one of the things that we have really been looking forward to
with California
is some National Parks
that are in this particular area
and soon today
we are going to be heading out to visit
the Queen's National Park
and then we may or may not visit King's Canyon National Park today
and we might do that in a different day
or we'll see how much time that we have right to each other
and I have never ever in my life
seen a real
sequoia tree
and so I'm excited to be able to see a sequoia tree today
for the first time in my life
and to show to the kids sequoia trees
we have never seen trees that big
being from Colorado we don't have sequoia trees so
we're gonna go to check that out
and stay tuned we'll show you what's there
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alright so we gonna use our every kid outdoors pass to get in for free
Thanks Trinity
Oh Thanks Dakota
Hello we got one of this
Thank you so much
Thank you
we're just driving through to go to see the giant forest area
and we came upon this called tunnel rocks
so we are gonna check out
coz this looks like
a pretty cool little formation that's here
definitely one of those kind fun road side attractions sort of things to see
actually like in the old road
you would drive under this
and you could see kinda yellow lines
and obviously they decided to build the road around it
and that let people drive thru it anymore
for sure for safety reasons
driving up here every once in a while
you'll see little water falls like this
and so
we wanted to stop and just look at it but
I don't think that there's any sound quite
as peaceful it's like running water
over rocks
like this so just probably way
you know people have gotten those fountains and stuff over the years
where it just water running over rocks
man this sounds gotta be the one of the most peaceful sounds
in the world just hearing that water over the rocks
look at this one here guys it looks like an evergreen type of tree
like the needle like the needles
I wasn't sure what's to expect as far as sequoia tree
what do they call it
green leaves or not but it's like
needles
yeah and it's actually were going up high in elevation
I wouldn't have thought that going higher
on a big mountain
would have trees but this actual
sequoia trees grow within
what is that 5 to 7,000 feet
yeah they grow between 5,000 and 7,000 feet in elevation
and they're only found in
I've never seen so big in my entire life
this is crazy
can you guys see this
oh my gosh
crazy
look at the texture
look at that it so thick
and look at the texture see
like fish scales
interesting that we were reading is that
you see a lot of the fire scars on these trees
and that fires actually bring
new growth
to sequoias because what happens is
the fire dries like the pine cones
not really pine cones but the cones
they contain the seeds and when those seeds
come out of the cones coz they're dried and it falls
unto the ground where they spread in those ashes
it creates like a perfect seed bed
and so without that fire
there wouldn't be a new growth
so that just struck me in such an amazing metaphor
I feel like so many times even in our own lives
we may experience either a traumatic event or
something like that some sort of fire right
trial by fire is a saying in life we used a lot
and that is one of those things that a lot of times
forces us out of that comfort zone
towards new growth
and so I think it's amazing
when you see that played out in nature
that fire that heat
is what causes the new growth
I always wonder if this one got struck by lightning
it's charred
or maybe there is a forest fire and it survived
look at this
this is amazing
but you can't lookup
you just keep looking
and looking
this is amazing
look at that they're huge
oh my gosh you just keep looking
like a hollow sound here
yeah that's interesting
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so we are at the General Sherman tree trail
now this goes to a tree called General Sherman
that is the largest tree on the planet
on the whole planet
so we're gonna go to see it definitely
a bucket list item to see the largest tree
on the whole planet so let's go
right so if we're walking down 212 feet
we have to come back up 212 feet that we walked
so going down is gonna be easier than coming back up
good to know
trunks of these sequoias are bigger than
trunks of the pines even though there are some really big pines too
this is just really interesting the red color
versus the gray color in the bark
and that's obviously one distinct difference that's really interesting
to see these trees they're just absolutely amazing
I mean I'm so just blown away
but it's all paved so
very easy to walk down
there are some stepped areas
so that's something to be aware of
but it's paved not worry about somebody
sliding if they didn't wear the appropriate foot wear
this is just a great beautiful trail system here at sequoia national park
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I think they say that you always know which way is North by looking at which way
the moss are growing on the trees
coz the moss grows on the north side of the trees
I probably wanna verify that before I use it as a compass
so think about it
I mean if the trees 2,200 years old
it has gone through some forest fires
and the fact that it survived the forest fires
and it didn't burn
I wonder if
I think I wonder if they're really well preserved
like you know if they got some sort of oils and things like that in them
that really preserve them to make them last through fires and stuff
but let us see
it is dead ha
the trunks gonna not get any taller
but it's volume keeps increasing even though it's dead
that's weird
so the cross-section of this tree here we're looking at
and it was 2,010 years old when they cut it down
so it's just a little bit younger than the General Sherman tree
but when you look at it
there's places where there's like bigger cracks
those are fire scars
so when you see some fire scars
so those cracks and then where you see more growth
is then the fire's gonna said that this tree has survived
at least 80 different fires during that 2,210 year life span
so pretty interesting that these giant sequoias see
lots of fires within their lifetime
and you know they continue to grow
it's definitely
more difficult
walking up versus walking down
it's about 7,000 feet in elevation
which I'm from being Colorado
but seven
the air is a little bit thinner
and definitely the heart rate is up so
I'm definitely in a work out
slow and steady
Trinity decided she's gonna run up
got a quick burst of energy
and realized maybe that wasn't so smart
here she comes again
slow and steady
so we're at King's Canyon National Park
which once we got up here and realize that
King's Canyon and Sequoia are basically are adjacent one to another and
we are on a mission to check out as many of national parks system as much as we can
we obviously had to just to come over here
the road went under some major construction
so there were some pretty good delays
and tons of dust
but we are over here near what is called Grant Tree
so we're gonna check that out
but a ton more sequoias that are here
and are we just keep been blown away
by these trees
the size of them
it just you know
we've both grown up kind of
in the you know rocky mountains
black hills of South Dakota
the trees like aren't like this there
so and we've been to Tennessee and the smokey mountains
and we've never seen trees like this
so they definitely are impressive
and something that I would highly recommend
putting on your travel list as some point
is to come through this area and these two national parks
so this is Grant Tree Trail
to those who want to see the Grant tree
is just a kinda half mile loop and it's paved
so the wonderful thing about this here in King's Canyon National Park
is if you have somebody in your group
that has some accessibility needs or anything like that
this is a great trail to take them on
even like say a motorized you know wheel chair
could make it around this trail
so this makes a great trail for anybody
to enjoy regardless of any mobility concerns
giant fallen sequoia that you can
go down into and go through
so this is pretty cool
going under this tree
so they're very well preserved
this is pretty cool
so this is the General Grant Tree
which is the 3rd largest tree in the world
and it's 268 feet tall
and the interesting thing that we were reading is that
how big sequoia gets
does it really matter about
where
that it is as far as elevation goes
but is a combination of the right factors
soil and sunlight
so basically the perfect environment
so the better the environment for those type of factors
the taller it's gonna get
so this is the 3rd largest tree in the world
but it's not the oldest tree in the world
3rd largest by volume so not necessarily
how thick it is
or tall it is
or just by overall volume
on top of each other
we've been reading the little house on the prairie book to the kids
and
this is how they built cabins back then is they
did all this by hand
so they would have logs
and they would flatten by you know pan tools and
notch them and
put in chinking and
pretty impressive when you think about the manual labor
that goes into something like that
early explorers that came to this area found this giant
sequoia trees
and just couldn't believe how big that they were
and so they start telling other people
and they didn't believe them
and so some of these trees
back then this is like in the late 1800's
they cut them down
and then shipped them off in pieces
to different expeditions
and kinda put them back together
and this particular remains of this stump
that they say a centennial stump
when they took it to this centennial celebration
they kinda re-assemble those pieces
to show people
like yes there are really trees this big in California
they laughed it off and called it the Califonia hoax
because nobody believed that there were really trees
that were that this big
and they thought that it was a fake
it's kind of interesting back story that
people didn't really believe that this existed
until people start coming and seeing them more in person
because it's just even with your own eyes
it feels somewhat unbelievable because they are so large
so pretty interesting wonder that's up here
just fascinating
thinking how long
some of these trees have been around
just you know for thousands and thousands of years and
but like I almost wonder like if these trees could talk
right
like what would they say as far as just how
that the park has changed over the years
the storms that they weathered
the fires that they survived
just really makes you think about like our lifespan
is so short right
like we are on this Earth for such a small time which is
part of the reason why we do what we do
and we live the RV life that we live right now is
because we have such a short time that we're here
but then we have such a short time that our kids
are going to be us in our homes
before that they're grown up and living lives of their own
and so when you think about just time and
you know those lifespans
it really makes you start to realize that
this season of parenting and this season of having kids
is such a short season that we wanna make sure
that were doing this thing well
and it doesn't mean you will always have to go RVing to do it well but
just you know building that connection
building that relationship with your kids
with your spouse coz we are only here for a short time
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