With winter around the corner it is Warming Hut time again! The 2016/2017 Warming Hut season will kick off on Thanksgiving Day and continue through the end of March. Open every weekend and throughout the Christmas holidays, the Warming Hut offers our chilled visitors free hot chocolate, hot apple cider, coffee, tea and a roaring [...]
Winter is coming to the Big Trees, and free guided snowshoe hikes will once again be offered to the public every Saturday once the ground is blanketed with snow. The snowshoe hikes offer Park visitors a chance to get a close look at the Big Trees sequoia grove and surrounding forest in winter and to [...]
The very successful Calfornia Naturalist Program is returning to Calaveras Big Trees this coming summer. The mission of the California Naturalist Program is to foster a diverse community of naturalists and promote stewardship of California’s natural resources through education and service. It introduces Californians to the wonders of our unique ecology and engages the public [...]
As a contribution to the vision of Calaveras Big Trees State Park, the Arts of Bear Valley piloted a children's mural project, titled "Footprints in the Park” over the 4th of July week. It brought many families into the Park—with some even returning to the reception to see the finished product. The design and most [...]
In the summer of 2015, the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) held a series of brainstorming sessions with docents, staff, the CBTA Board and other interested people regarding possible changes to the Calaveras Big Trees State Park general plan. This was part of the process of conceptual facility planning for our Park. The general [...]
The present drought in California is the most prolonged in nearly two thousand years. In a study of tree ring width of fallen giant sequoias (Sequoadendron giganteum) in the central region of the Sierra, extending from Yosemite to Sequoia National Park, Hughes and Brown (Climate Dynamics 6: 161-167, 1991) found evidence for an average of [...]
The Butte Fire, which threatened but did not harm Calaveras Big Trees State Park, provided a learning experience for Park and CBTA staff members. When the fire first erupted 25 miles or so away, it seemed a long distance, and was watched with interest but little real concern for the Park. But by the second [...]
Steve Stocking passed away in November 2014, taken too early by cancer. I first met him at Sequoia National Park in the summer of ’65 or ’66. My father knew him from Franklin High School, and Ranger Stocking was my nature merit badge counselor. I thought this guy knew everything about anything alive. According to [...]
