Doggin' Converse Basin: On The Trail Of One Of America's Biggest Trees

Sometimes having our dogs banned from a park can work in our favor. Such is the case with Converse Basin, a place you probably wouldn't think of going without a dog.

For sheer wonder it is hard to beat massive sequoia trees, perhaps because we've all seen big trees and we think we know what a big tree is. So we're not prepared for just how BIG these magnificent trees are. The National Park ervice has done a good jump at getting access to sequoia groves in three California Sierras parks: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon. But the result is that you get an awe-inspiring experience, but it's the same experience that millions of others get.

None of these national parks allow dogs on the trail so while the crowds are admiring the famous General Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park, dog owners will want to travel five miles north (on a completely unmaintained road) to the Converse Basin, where your dog can get up close to a famous giant sequoia, the Boole Tree.

Converse Basin is a giant sequoia graveyard. This area was once quite possibly the finest sequoia grove that ever was. Massive trees over 300 feet high were enthusiastically felled by loggers - often for little more than shingles. One 285-foot sequoia known as the General Noble Tree was cut in 1893 to display at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the Chicago Stump can be seen today. Among the trees destroyed in the Converse Basin was the oldest known giant sequoia to have been cut down - 3200 annual growth rings were counted. So many trees were taken that the area is known as Stump Meadow.

The hiking trail in the Converse Basin is a 2 1/2 mile loop to reach the Boole Tree. Leading straight out from the parking lot you are quickly on the edge of Kings Canyon and you'll enjoy open, sweeping views as you switchback up the ridge. Shortly after finishing your climb you reach a short side trail that leads into a depression containing the Boole Tree, once thought to be the largest giant sequoia in the world but more exacting measurements have placed it eighth. No one knows why this great tree was spared when equally large trees were brought down.

If you have spent the day looking at giant sequoias in the landscaped national parks, your encounter with the Boole Tree might come as a bit of a shock. It is related to its brothers in Kings Canyon National Park like the wolf is to your dog. Surrounded by dense forest growth, it is actually possible to not immediately recognize the Boole Tree from the main trail. But once you see your dog up against its massive trunk - its ground perimeter of 113 feet is the greatest of all giant sequoias - there is no mistaking this special
tree.

There are no signs or markings for the Converse Basin. To find it you will need to stop in to the park office at Kings Canyon National Park and mention you want to go there and they'll give you a Xeroxed map.

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