Share some pretty cool nature facts I just learned that kind of blew my mind.

I’m currently at Sequoia National Park with my family. I was blown away to see General Sherman, the world’s biggest tree. And the sequoia trees in general are incredible. It amazes me that some of these trees have stood for over 3000 years.

After visiting General Sherman I began to do some research on “world’s biggest and oldest trees” and learned that California has the world’s biggest, tallest, and oldest tree. That’s crazy to me that one state in our country just happens to have all three of these:

World’s tallest tree: Hyperion (A coastal redwood in CA that is 380 feet tall)

World’s biggest tree by volume: General Sherman in Sequoia that is 275 feet tall, with a diameter of 36 feet at the base of its trunk, and has over 52,000 cubic feet of volume, weighing an estimated 4 million pounds. For context, you could almost fit 3 Hyperion’s inside General Sherman. It’s massive and awe inspiring when you see it up close!

World’s oldest tree: A bristle cone pine in eastern California known as Methuselah that is 4,853 years old (Pyramid of Giza is 4500 years old) for context. Just insane.

Just kind of random and mind blowing to me that CA just happens to have all three of these trees. Nature is amazing!

Last fun fact I learned: Sequoias need frequent forest fires to thrive. The fires dry out their pine cones which cause them to release their seeds into fertile soil after the fire. Kind of a cool fact. They thrive in the western sierras due to high altitude, dry climate, and yep, frequent forest fires.

Carry on, my friends.