CA -- Kings Canyon Natl Park:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- KCAN_090731_005.JPG: A Fiery Hand Shapes the Land:
In fall 1955, McGee fire burned over 17,500 acres between Miramonte and the Kings River. Sparked by an escaped burn, McGee was a dramatic example of extreme fire behavior in the Sierra Nevada ecosystem.
Natural fires were common and not very intense so they burned ground vegetation and debris, but left the trees. McGee left ashes and charred sticks where trees once stood.
Sierran plant species play an important role in fire ecology. Bushes have oily leaves and shaggy bark to fuel fires so they burn in any fire, large or small. Trees here are adapted to fire in a different way. Giant sequoia bark can be two feet thick and pine bark several inches thick, so fire rarely harms the living wood.
What Happened:
After this area was logged in the late 1800s, few trees remained in this altered ecosystem where poor quality wood and branches were left to rot. Years of suppressing all fire here had disrupted the fire cycle. Dense brush grew under the trees forming fuel ladders.
Fifty years later, the dry September wind carried embers from a prescribed burn into a tinderbox of old brush and scraggly trees. Fuel ladders allowed the McGee Fire to climb from the ground through the brush and branches into the treetops.
- KCAN_090731_028.JPG: A Yet Grander View:
"In the west Sierra wilderness far to the southward of the famous Yosemite Valley, there is a yet grander valley of the same kind. It is situated on the South Fork of the Kings River... beneath the shadows of the highest mountains in the range, where the canyons are deepest, and the snow laden peaks are crowded most closely together... Their general characters, however, are wonderfully alike and they bear the same relationship to the fountains of the ancient glaciers above them." John Muir, Century Magazine, 1891
John Muir was correct. Both Yosemite Valley on the Merced River and Kings Canyon that you are looking at now are grand and wonderful: and both were sculpted by glaciers.
Glaciers shaped Kings Canyon in two ways. First, they widened it, plucking rock from the sides of the canyon as their icy masses moved down from the mountains. Then second shaping took place as the glaciers melted, retreating in stages back up the canyon. At each stage, they left a hill of pulverized rock and boulders, called a moraine. The outwash water from the melting glaciers carried immense quantities of gravel and sand, which then filled the areas between the moraines. Today, the moraines poke up through this outwash material on the valley floor. You are standing on a moraine now, and sleeping on one if you're staying in the aptly named Moraine Campground.
This widening of the canyon sides and the filling of the canyon bottom gives us the U-shaped canyon you are enjoying today. As you leave, compare this view with the V-shaped unglaciated river canyon you drive through just west of here.
It is hard to imagine Kings Canyon as it was several thousand years ago, filled with a slowly moving river of ice. It may be just as hard to imagine the Kings Canyon of today filled with hundreds of feet of water. Yet, that could have been the tale of this spectacular Canyon. You can learn the story of the long battle to preserve Kings Canyon at an exhibit located at Roads End.
- KCAN_090731_151.JPG: Kings Canyon National Park
- KCAN_090731_231.JPG: "The Lord is Good" -- I don't understand why a Christian youth camp is situated here. I have to presume it was grandfathered in.!
- AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
- Wikipedia Description: Kings Canyon National Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kings Canyon National Park is a U.S. National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Fresno, California. The park was established in 1940 and covers 462,901 acres (1,869.25 kmē). It incorporated General Grant National Park, established in 1890 to protect the General Grant Grove.
The park is north of and contiguous with Sequoia National Park; the two are administered by the National Park Service as one unit, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Geography:
Kings Canyon National Park consists of two sections. The small, detached General Grant Grove section of Kings Canyon National Park preserves several groves of giant sequoia including the General Grant Grove, with the famous General Grant Tree, and the Redwood Mountain Grove, which is the largest remaining natural Giant Sequoia grove in the world (covering 3,100 acres (13 kmē) and with 15,800 sequoia trees over one foot (0.30 m) in diameter at their bases). This section of the park is mostly mixed conifer forest, and is readily accessible via paved highways.
The remainder of Kings Canyon National Park, which comprises over 90% of the total area of the park, is located to the east of General Grant Grove and forms the headwaters of the South and Middle Forks of the Kings River and the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. Both the South and Middle Forks of the Kings Rivers have extensive glacial canyons. One portion of the South Fork canyon, known as the Kings Canyon, gives the entire park its name. According to the Guinness book of world records, Kings Canyon is the deepest canyon in the United States with a maximum depth of 8,200 feet (2,4 km). The canyon was carved by glaciers out of granite. The Kings Canyon, and its developed area, Cedar Grove, is the only portion of the main part of the park that is accessible by motor vehicle. Both the Kings Canyon, and its Middle Fork twin, Tehipite Valley, are glacial “Yosemites” – deeply incised glacial gorges with relatively flat floors and towering granite cliffs thousands of feet high.
To the east of the canyons are the high peaks of the Sierra Crest culminating in 14,242 foot (4,341 m) high North Palisade, the highest point in the park. This is classic high Sierra country – barren alpine ridges and glacially scoured lake-filled basins. Usually snow free only from late June until late October, the high country is accessible only via foot and horse trails. The Sierran crest forms the eastern boundary of the park, from the Mount Goethe in the north, down to Junction Peak, at the boundary with Sequoia National Park. Several well-travelled passes cross the crest into the park, including Bishop Pass, Taboose Pass, Sawmill Pass, and Kearsarge Pass. All of these passes are above 11,000 feet (3,400 m) elevation.
History:
Kings Canyon had been known to white settlers since the mid-1800s, but it was not until John Muir first visited in 1873 that the canyon began receiving attention. Muir was delighted at the canyon's similarity to Yosemite Valley, as it reinforced his theory regarding the origin of both valleys, which, though competing with Josiah Whitney's then-accepted theory, later proved true: that both valleys were carved by massive glaciers during the last Ice Age.
Kings Canyon's future was in doubt for nearly fifty years. Some wanted to build a dam at the western end of the valley, while others wanted to preserve it as a park. The debate was settled in 1965, when the valley along with Tehipite Valley, was added to General Grant National Park, established 1890.
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