South Grove at Calaveras Big Trees State Park

The trail starts as a wide trail that gently slopes down. Near the start of the trail you'll pass a structure that features a plaque with the preserve donors.

Cross over the footbridge and take a second to listen to the creek below. At the other end of the bridge you will find a sign thanking the many people who donated for the bridge

After this point you will enter the South Grove Natural Preserve where you will see some of the biggest trees in the area.

Cross the small wooden footbridge and continue along the trail. Soon you will start to spot the first Giant Sequoias

You have arrived at the first of many giant sequoias in the grove. Take a few minutes to stare up at these massive trees. You can tell which trees are sequoias by looking for the following:

Bark: the bark of sequoia trees is soft and can be pulled apart quite easily, and is usually brown or red in color.

Leaves: the leaves are bluish gray and spiral out from a round twig (although sometimes they are hard to see because the lowest leaves may be 100 feet high!)

Cones: the cones are about the size of an egg, and can contain up to 300 seeds each.

Size: if you see a very large tree in this area, the chances are high that it's a sequoia. Sequoias as the tallest trees in the world, and can grow over 300 feet tall.

Look at the large burn scar on this tree! This was caused a while ago by a natural wildfire in the area. Sequoia’s are very resilient to fire. Because the outer later (inside of the fire-resistant bark) is the only layer of the tree that is growing, the center of the tree can burn away and the tree can continue living and growing for centuries longer (as long as it can still stand up that is).

In fact, Sequoias need fire to survive. The warmth from the fire opens up the Sequoia’s pinecones that have fallen to the ground, allowing the seeds to fall out and start growing. Small fires also clear out the brush around the area, which makes it easier for the seeds to sprout. But don’t think this means you should start a fire to help the Sequoias grow—they will do fine by themselves relying on natural disasters, some of the trees in this grove have been surviving because of--and despite of--them for over 2000 years.

The white rock that you just passed is quartz.

No one is sure what caused this tree to fall. Sequoia trees are very resistant to disease, insects, and fire, but gravity may have been this tree's downfall (pun intended).

The roots of sequoias can stretch 100 feet to the side, but only reach about 6 feet down into the ground. While this makes it easy for the trees to soak up water from a very large area, it means that they can become uprooted relatively easily. This tree may have fallen after a rain storm, while the ground was less stable, or during heavy winds that pushed it over.

But this tree is not completely gone; as this tree decomposes, it provides valuable nutrients to other smaller plants in the area which can grow on it, preserving the circle of life.

This tree was named the Palace Hotel Tree after the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, because the opening where the burn scar is reminded them of the Grand Court of the hotel. it was thus named in the 1870s and its name has not changed since.

This very large tree was named after Louis Agassiz who was one of the leading naturalists in America. This tree is one of the largest in the grove, measuring over 25 feet in diameter, and around 250 feet tall.

Here you will see a number of large sequoias growing very close to each other. Unlike coastal redwood which can sprout from roots or stumps, these sequoias need very rich soil to grow, which is why you see many in the same area--it was the best or only place for them to grow.

Sometimes, you may see two trees grow so closely to each other that they eventually become one tree as they grow wider. The base will look like a single tree, but if you look up you will see two distinct trunks near the top.

The Bradley Grove trail branches off to the left here. This is a 2.5 mile loop through a grove of young giant sequoias planted in the 1950s.