LITMIR.BIZ

      Introduction

      To stand atop a craggy peak and gaze through the clear blue skies of the High Sierra across the sparkling granite landscape of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon backcountry is a truly rapturous and transcendent experience. A similar stirring is found at the base of a cinnamon-colored giant sequoia, one’s face warmed while gazing skyward by the few rays of dappled sunlight that reach the forest floor through a towering canopy of massive limbs holding feathery green foliage. Gaze upon the rushing and turbulent waters of a wild river coursing through a canyon of vertical rock rising thousands of feet above and you’re likely to experience the same emotions that swept over John Muir when he first saw Kings Canyon and later declared this chasm to be “a rival to Yosemite.”

Human History

      People have been interacting with the greater Sequoia and Kings Canyon area for centuries. Their influence on the land has been an important element of the evolution of the parks, the surrounding wilderness, and the frontcountry.

      Native Americans and Early Settlement

      The Native Americans who resided in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon region have been divided into four separate tribes—the Monache, Tubatulabal, Owens Valley Paiute, and Yokut. These four groups traveled extensively within the region, hunting, trading, and establishing summer camps. Several sites within the parks provide evidence of some of these settlements, with Hospital Rock in Sequoia perhaps the most visited by modern-day tourists.

      Early European-American explorers, such as Jedediah Smith and John C. Frémont, tended to avoid the rugged, high mountains of the High Sierra in favor of more easily negotiated terrain to the north and south. Dissuaded by the difficult topography, early explorers knew little about the area until settlers in the San Joaquin Valley began venturing into the mountains in the mid-1850s.

      Hale D. Tharp, a rancher from the Three Rivers area, was perhaps the first Caucasian to see the sequoias in the Giant Forest. At the invitation of some friendly Potwisha in 1856, Tharp headed east toward the mountains to see the rumored Big Trees and to scout a summer range for his livestock. He followed the Middle Fork Kaweah River upstream to Moro Rock and then climbed up to Log Meadow. A couple of years later, he retraced his route to the Giant Forest, continued north into the Kings River drainage, and then returned to his ranch by way of the East and South Forks of the Kaweah. Subsequently, Tharp grazed his cattle each summer in Log Meadow, using a fallen and burned out sequoia as a makeshift cabin.

      Increasing settlement in the San Joaquin Valley ultimately spelled doom for the Native Americans, as exposure to various diseases decimated their populations. Surviving members of the four tribes either traversed the Sierra to the less desirable high desert on the east side of the range or remained on the west side and attempted to adapt to the white man’s culture. Additional pressure was placed on the Native American population when an even greater number of Euro-Americans settled in the area, lured by the prospects of gold, lumber, and fertile ranchland.

      Exploitation of Resources

      Much to the disappointment of the hordes of miners seeking their fortune, the southern Sierra proved to be a major bust in the search for precious metals. Mineral King, perhaps the preeminent site in the region, was imagined to be the area’s equivalent to Sutter’s Mill in the northern Sierra. However, the site never produced a commercially viable quantity of either gold or silver.

      Lumbermen turned out to be as equally disillusioned as their mining counterparts. The discovery of the giant sequoia wetted the appetites of entrepreneurs who anticipated enormous profits from milling lumber from such gigantic trees. Unfortunately for the lumbermen, the sequoia wood proved to be too brittle for most construction purposes. Fortunately for the species, the labor-intensive effort required to fell the big trees turned out to be a commercially unviable enterprise. The mills never made much of a profit—some even lost money—and most of the sequoia wood was used for fence posts or shakes. Sadly, many lumber companies failed to realize the relatively poor quality of sequoia lumber until after entire groves were destroyed. Converse

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