February 2003

Mariposa Grove, Giant Sequoias covered in fresh snow.

Mariposa Grove is a sequoia grove located near Wawona, California in the southernmost part of Yosemite National Park, at 37°31′N, 119°36′W. It is the largest grove of Giant Sequoias in the park, with several hundred mature examples of the tree. Two of its trees are among the fifty largest such trees in the world.

The Mariposa Grove was first visited by non-natives in 1857 when Galen Clark and Milton Mann found it. They named the grove after Mariposa County, California, where the grove resides.

The Giant Sequoia named Grizzly Giant is, at between probably 1600-2000 years old , the oldest tree in the grove. In 1932 it was claimed to be the fifth largest (by volume) tree in the world, but other trees were subsequently found to be larger; it currently has a volume of 963 cubic meters, only the 27th largest. It is 63 m tall, and has a heavily buttressed base with a basal circumference of 28 m (92 feet) or a diameter of 8.9 m (29 feet); above the butresses at 2.4 m above ground, the circumference is only 22 m (diameter 7 m). Grizzly Giant's first branch from its base is itself 2 m (6 feet) in diameter.

Another tree, the Wawona Tree, had a tunnel wide enough for horse-drawn carriages and early automobiles to drive through, cut through it in the nineteenth century. Weakened by this large opening at its base, the tree fell down in 1969.

Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864 ceding the "Mariposa Big Tree Grove" (and Yosemite Valley) to the state of California; criticism of the stewardship over the land led to the state returning the grove to federal control upon establishment of Yosemite National Park.

The Mariposa Grove Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.