Sequoia National Park

Sequoia National Park, established in 1890 as the second national park in the country, protects groves of giant sequoias in California's southern Sierra Nevada — the largest living things on Earth by volume. Among them stands the General Sherman Tree, the single biggest tree in the world, a living column of wood more than 36 feet across at its base and some 275 feet tall, thought to be over 2,000 years old.

The park rises from foothills into the high Sierra, climbing to the crest at Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States, on its eastern boundary. It is administered together with neighboring Kings Canyon National Park. The giant sequoias grow only on the Sierra's western slope, in a narrow belt where deep snowpack and the right elevation let these fire-adapted giants reach their staggering age and size.