Sequoia National Park Quotes

If nature has a soul, it feels like it must be bound up in the bark and sap of our forests. There, older, wiser sentinels stand in silent judgment. Not just the ancient sequoias and redwoods—even regular pine and birch trees outlast us. Every tree is a witness tree—they see how we spend our time on earth, what we take and what we give.

The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is recognized. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little windowsill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National Parks—the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc.—Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like anything else worth while, from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been subject to attack by despoiling gain-seekers and mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised in smug-smiling philanthropy, industriously, sham-piously crying, "Conservation, conservation, panutilization," that man and beast may be fed and the dear Nation made great. Thus long ago a few enterprising merchants utilized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves; and earlier still, the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was likewise despoiled. Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite National Park, strife has been going on around its borders and I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however much of its boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed.

I was bypassing the High Sierra—missing Sequoia and Kings Canyon and Yosemite national parks, Tuolumne Meadows and the John Muir and Desolation wildernesses

When advocating for the sequoias, Muir once wrote, “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this is left to the American people.

established Yellowstone as the first national park on March 1, 1872. President Lincoln had signed a bill in 1864 that permitted California to preserve the Yosemite Valley and the giant sequoias of the Mariposa Grove, but it was Grant who initiated the modern national park system.

Yosemite is so large that you can think of it as five parks. Yosemite Valley, famous for waterfalls and cliffs, and Wawona, where the giant sequoias stand, are open all year. Hetch Hetchy, home of less-used backcountry trails, closes after the first big snow and reopens in May or June. The subalpine high country, Tuolumne Meadows, is open for summer hiking and camping; in winter it’s accessible only via cross-country skis or snowshoes. Badger Pass Ski Area is open in winter only. Most visitors spend their time along the park’s southwestern border, between Wawona and Big Oak Flat Entrance; a bit farther east in Yosemite Valley and Badger Pass Ski Area; and along the east–west corridor of Tioga Road, which spans the park north of Yosemite Valley and bisects Tuolumne Meadows.

The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is recognized. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks—the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc.—Nature’s sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world.

1899, the 24th Mounted Infantry, an African American army regiment, was entrusted with the protection of Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks in California. For a long time people forgot their presence in the parks’ history, until Shelton Johnson found a picture.

Tuolumne Grove This small grove of giant sequoias is often overshadowed by the more famous Mariposa Grove in Wawona, but the Tuolumne Grove is definitely worth a visit if you’re enchanted by the big trees. The grove is located about a half mile past the Crane Flat junction. A two-mile round-trip path starts from the parking area and drops about 500 feet as it passes by 25 giant sequoias. Among the notables: a tree with a tunnel cut through the trunk (the tunnel was cut in 1878), and a giant tree that rises nearly 300 feet—one of the tallest giant sequoias in the world.

The National Park Service and the Yosemite Conservancy are teaming on a $36 million project to improve the lot of giant sequoias in the Mariposa Grove.

What if each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to productive native plant communities? Even moderate success could collectively restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more than twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland. How big is twenty million acres? It’s bigger than the combined areas of the Everglades, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Teton, Canyonlands, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Badlands, Olympic, Sequoia, Grand Canyon, Denali, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. If we restore the ecosystem function of these twenty million acres, we can create this country’s largest park system. It gives me the shivers just to write about it. Because so much of this park will be created at our homes, I suggest we call it Homegrown National Park.