Tunnel Log
This question is asked thousands of times each year by visitors to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. They are surprised to hear that the famous tunneled sequoia tree they seek was never in these parks, but rather 100 air-miles north in the Mariposa Grove of Yosemite National Park. And to complicate matters further, this famous sequoia, the Wawona Tree, fell over in early 1969. The tunnel through Yosemite's famous Wawona Tree was cut in 1881 as a tourist attraction. It was the second standing sequoia to be tunneled (the first, a dead tree, still stands in the Tuolumne Grove in Yosemite). The Wawona Tree stood for 88 summers before it fell during the severe winter of 1968-69. Factors leading to its failure include heavy snow, wet soil, and, of course, the weakening effect of the tunnel. When it fell, the Wawona Tree was approximately 2,100 years old, 234 feet high (71.3 meters), and 26 feet in diameter at the base (7.9 meters). The famous tunnel was 7 feet wide, 9 feet high and 26 feet long at the base (2.1 meters by 2.7 meters by 7.9 meters).
Visitors to Sequoia and Kings Canyon can drive through Sequoia Park's fallen "Tunnel Log" located along the Crescent Meadow Road in Giant Forest. The fallen Tunnel Log of Sequoia National Park came into being after an unnamed giant sequoia fell across the Crescent Meadow Road in late 1937 as a result of "natural causes." The following summer, a tunnel was cut through the fallen log as a visitor attraction. When it fell, the tree stood 275 feet high (83.8 meters) and was 21 feet in diameter at the base (6.4 meters). The tree's age when it fell has not been determined, but probably exceeded 2,000 years.
