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Big trees

Deep in the woods of California, Giant Sequoias thrive in small groves. The Giant Sequoia isn't the worlds tallest tree but it is by far the most massive.  Three groves of Giant Sequoias can be found in Yosemite, on the way out of the park early in the morning we stopped for a quick two mile out and back hike to visit one.

The Merced grove is tiny.  Just a handful of these huge trees located in a valley amongst other trees.  But still very impressive.  We hiked a short loop around the trees which even tunnelled through the base of an old dead stump.

Being in a quiet patch of forest not heavily visited, we were on the wary lookout for bears (bears being to Australians what snakes are to Americans) but thankfully didn't see any.  In fact for some reason the forest seemed unusually quiet.  Just a few squirrels and not much else.  This silence kind of magnified the majesty of the giant trees.

We only stayed a short time as we had a deadline to return our car in Oakland.  Next trip to California we'll make sure a bigger patch of sequoias is on the agenda.

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