Few places across our region are as popular as the stunning groves of giant sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. The North Grove right off Highway 4 gets nearly all of the visitation and attention. A relatively new Visitor Center adjacent to the North Grove is beautiful in its own right, with truly impressive naturalist displays, top quality informational movies, and plenty of options for those wanting to buy souvenirs with ties to the giant trees and the Park’s wildlife.
The South Grove is far more remote. Only by hiking a considerable distance does a visitor enter the cathedral of towering trees and lush beauty of that more hidden grove.
Those two groves as well as other forested portions of the Park are now being evaluated by State Park staff with a programmatic plan aiming to set direction for doing prescribed burns, removing invasive plants, and developing logging projects to thin out forest areas judged to pose excessive fire risk.
CSERC staff carefully reviewed the Park’s proposed Veg Management Plan, and we agree with the key theme. The Park is unnaturally choked with far denser fuel conditions and far more trees than would have occurred naturally if humans had not suppressed wildfires for so many decades. The premise in the Plan is that it will take a variety of significantly ramped up treatments to restore healthier conditions and reduce the risk of extreme wildfires.
The challenge for the State Park staff is to undertake that surge in fuel reduction treatments with sensitivity for those Park lovers who may be easily offended by the logging of trees up to 30” in diameter in a Park that was created to protect trees.
But of course the ultimate goal of the Park removing medium size trees is to take proactive fuel reduction steps to protect the truly irreplaceable giant sequoias that are the iconic draw that brings so many to Big Trees Park. They are also a priceless legacy we want to pass along to future generations.
