Indian tribes of the Southern Sierra
In native times, the parks were home to two distinctive Indian groups, the Western Mono and the Tubatulabal. The Balwisha division of the Shoshonean-speaking Western Mono inhabited the the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains between their summit and western foothills. The Kern River drainage was home to the Shoshonean-speaking Tubatulabal or Pitanisha. more...

Charles Young and the Buffalo Soldiers
Before 1916, a company of mounted cavalry troops were dispatched each summer from San Francisco's Presidio to patrol what is now Sequoia and Kings Canyon. In those early years, the summer of 1903 stands out as a monument to energy and commitment. This was the year that Captain (later Colonel) Charles Young and soldiers of the all-black troops I and M of the 9th Cavalry came to the Sierra. Young and his troopers completed the first road to the Giant Forest, making the grove easily accessible for the first time. On the day the road opened, modern tourism began in Sequoia National Park. more...

Walter Fry, Ambassador of Nature
In 1888 Walter Fry came to know the sequoias as a logger, having left hardship in the Midwest for a new life in the Sierra. After spending five days with a team of five men sawing a single sequoia, he counted the growth rings on the fallen giant. The answer shocked him into changing careers - in just a few days they had ended 3266 years of growth. Two years later a petition was circulating, calling for a new national park to protect the sequoias. The third signature was Walter Fry's. more...

Climber Norman Clyde, a True Sierra Legend
"A strong team of skilled rockclimbers will conquer a lonely spire, using the most modern of climbing gear and techniques and win through with well-coordinated teamwork to find on a faded Kodak box the record of a solo climb of three decades ago. Or, at the high point of a distant ridge will be found a small cairn, but no written record. Obviously the work of man, and one mountaineer will turn to his companion with, 'Well, it looks like a first ascent, except for Norman Clyde.'"  more...