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»CA.STATE & NATIONAL PARKS Inside Nature's Cathedrals by bonnie smetts California's parks are tickets to awe and inspiration SEQUOIA National Park, with its giant sequoias and mule deer, is famous for the General Sherman tree, considered the world's largest. Four of the world's other ten largest trees also live in its Giant Forest, For more on redwoods, see North Coast, pages 141-145. 40 2 013 travel guide to c al i fo r n ia Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada Yosemite National Park, with its glaciersculpted valley and granite peaks, has something for everyone. Come in spring when the waterfalls thunder to the valley floor. Come in summer when the park is abuzz with visitors to explore by tram, bike or on foot. Choose a gentle halfhour hike or reserve a spot for the allday climb to Half Dome. Junior Ranger Walks are popular with kids. Backpackers can enjoy the solitude of the park's high country and expert rock climbers have dozens of granite walls to scale. Don't leave the park without stopping at Glacier Point with its views of Half Dome and Yosemite Valley or at the Mariposa Grove of Giant Redwoods to marvel at its 2,700-year-old Grizzly Giant. To see a really big tree—the world's largest by volume—head south to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and marvel at the weighty General Sherman. While still in the mountains, take a trip to Lake Tahoe, North America's largest alpine lake. Along the lake's west shore, D.L. Bliss, Emerald Bay and Sugar Pine Point state parks offer camping, hiking and white sand beaches. Farther north at Lassen Volcanic National Park, watch California take shape in the roaring fumaroles, thumping mud pots and boiling pools. Giants in the Mist While the Sierras are home to the heftiest redwoods, the state's fogshrouded coastal range from Oregon to Big Sur boasts the loftiest—several are taller than the Statue of Liberty. These rare trees, once logged to near ALL SHUTTERSTOCK TOP: JIM LOPES; BOTTOM, KANWARJIT SINGH BOPARAI; OPPOSITE PAGE CLOCKWISE, TOP: PDAMAI; BYRON W. MOORE; JUNKER; GREG EPPERSON; WILLIAM SILVER Snap a picture of the world's largest plant or listen to desert sand dunes sing. Camp where the cult classic Planet of the Apes was filmed or paddle across Lake Tenaya at dawn. Whatever your passion, California's 278 state parks and 32 national parks, seashores and monuments—whose mission is to protect the state's natural and cultural treasures— are the gateway to experiences as varied as the state's geography.