WALK AMONG THE GIANTS

by Mary C. Egan

Imagine you are hiking along a trail through the early morning mist in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. You look up to find yourself completely surrounded by giants! What do you do? Well, don't panic. What you've found is a grove of giant sequoia trees, the largest living things on earth.

Giant sequoias, also known as sierra redwoods, are truly amazing trees. Their trunks grow up as straight as columns and are covered with spongy, reddish-brown bark. This bark can grow to be two feet thick and actually helps to protect the trees against forest fires. Their root systems are very shallow and can spread out as far as 250 feet from the tree. This extensive system helps the giant sequoia grip the soil and withstand heavy rains and floods. Is it any wonder that these trees can live to be over 3,000 years old?

During the age of dinosaurs, many different types of sequoia existed besides the giant sequoia. They grew in huge groves across North America, Europe, and Asia. Can you picture a hungry brachiosaurus lifting its long, spindly neck to nibble on some tasty bark? Then came the Ice Age. Glaciers wiped out and caused the extinction of almost every other type of sequoia. The giant sequoia was one of the lucky few species, or varieties, to survive.

Today, giant sequoias are found in just a small pocket of central California, where they can easily grow over 250 feet tall. That's as tall as a twenty-five-story building. And, they can grow to be 100 feet around at the base. That means that if everyone in your class at school stood in a circle holding hands, you might just be able to reach all the way around the base of one of these massive trees.

The largest giant sequoia on record is the General Sherman Tree that lives in Sequoia National Park. This tree is 275 feet tall (that's taller than the Statue of Liberty) and 102 feet around at the base. It weighs over 6,000 tons, heavier than 1,080 elephants! If we were to chop down the General Sherman Tree and cut it into lumber, we could build 40 five-room houses, and yet we would have plenty of wood left to build a box big enough to hold an ocean liner!

There was a time when people really did cut down, or log, these magnificent trees. Fortunately, dedicated environmentalists were able to convince our government that these trees should be protected. So now, almost all of the remaining giant sequoias are surrounded by state and national parks, which means that they are free to live and grow for thousands of years more. They will be there for you to enjoy, and even for your children and your grandchildren.

So if you ever find yourself in the middle of a giant sequoia grove, don't panic. Instead, examine their trunks, study their bark, and marvel at their massive size. And above all, enjoy your walk among these truly amazing giants.

To learn more about the giant sequoias, you may wish to visit the following web sites:

Giant Sequoias (from Coast to Coast Discovery Ride)

Giant Sequoia (from ThinkQuest)

Redwood National and State Parks

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Mary C. Egan, author of numerous articles, short stories and books, loves reading children's literature as much as she does writing it. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois and member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She currently resides in San Jose, California with her husband, son and two cats.

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