the number of species able to adapt to this harsh climate.
Most alpine plants have successfully adapted to their environment by developing a low-growing, compact, and drought-tolerant form, which allows them to avoid the full brunt of the wind, grow closer to the warmth of the soil, and survive on low amounts of moisture. Most alpine plants are perennial, using less energy than annuals, which must produce an entirely new plant each season. Vegetation in the alpine zone can be divided into two classifications: alpine meadow and alpine rock.
Alpine meadows are common in the upper realm of the Sierra where a sufficient layer of moist soil is present. Meadows are generally composed of grasses and sedges, with alpine sedge and common sedge the most common. A wide array of wildflowers put on a showy, colorful display over the course of an abbreviated summer, capitalizing on the greater amount of available moisture. Among them is Sierra primrose, an alpine wildflower preferring moist, rocky soils with reddish blossoms on a 1- to 4-inch stem. There are a limited variety of shrubs, including alpine willow, snow willow, laurel, and heather, in small groupings.
Vegetation grows in small patches in the alpine rock community, unlike the large swaths of foliage in alpine meadows. Open gravel flats and scree areas produce a smattering of alpine plants. The protected microclimates found in boulder fields are oftentimes more suited to the survival of a diverse group of plants; wildflowers are most common, but a few shrubs grow here as well.
Animal Life: Aside from insects and invertebrates, few animals find a permanent home in the rarified alpine zone, where both food and shelter are in short supply. The only common residents are the heather vole, marmot, and pika. Yellow-bellied marmots often sunbathe on the tops of boulders. These usually chubby beasts have brown backs, dull yellow undersides, with white around their eyes and a dark band above their nose. They utter a sharp whistle when alarmed, which accounts for the common name of “whistle pig.”
Sierra bighorn sheep may venture into these heights during the summer, but they generally prefer areas at or below timberline. Similarly, black bears make occasional appearances in the alpine zone but are much more common in the lower elevations. Although many different species of birds frequent the alpine zone, only the rosy finch is as common here as it is in the upper forest zones.
Pinyon-Juniper Woodland
Plant Life: On the east side of the range and in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada, between roughly 6,000 and 9,000 feet, is the pinyon-juniper woodland. Typically, this zone receives a mere 5 to 15 inches of precipitation per year, most of which falls as winter snow, with the rest coming from random summer thunderstorms. This zone is composed primarily of widely scattered singleleaf pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla), with Sierra juniper and curl-leaf mountain mahogany as its two most common associates. Trees in this zone often grow in the form of large shrubs, although the pinyon can reach between 20 and 25 feet in height with spherical cones 1.5 to 2 inches long. Something of a gourmet item today, the seeds were a staple of the Paiute tribe’s diet. Sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and bitterbrush commonly make up this zone’s understory.
Wildflowers near Golden Trout Lake (Trip 104)
Spring and early summer may bring a colorful display of wildflowers, including drought-tolerant species like paintbrush, lupine, and mules ears, to the woodland.
Along the banks of eastern Sierra streams in this zone, a dense display of wildflowers, shrubs, and trees flourish in stark contrast to the area immediately outside the riparian zone. Quaking aspen, cottonwood, willow, oak, birch, and ash are common streamside trees, which may intermix with conifers from the forest zones above. Currant, wild rose, and a variety of willows are typical riparian shrubs.
Animal Life: A wide variety of amphibians, reptiles, birds such as the sage grouse and red-tailed hawk, and insects find a home in the pinyon-juniper woodland, as do an assortment of mammals. Small mammals, including several species of mice, squirrel, vole, rabbit, shrew, and chipmunk are quite common. Larger mammals, such as the coyote, skunk, badger, and mule deer, are familiar residents as well. Coyotes (Canas latrans) subsist as omnivores on a wide-ranging diet. Their whelps and howls are commonly heard after sundown.
Sagebrush Scrub
Plant Life: Fortunately, only a few east side trails pass through the extremely hot and dry conditions found in the sagebrush scrub zone. This zone receives less than 12 inches of precipitation per year, most of which falls during the winter months. Occasionally, a welcome thunderstorm waters the parched ground and produces the characteristically pungent aroma of wet sagebrush.
At first glance, the gray-green sagebrush creates a seemingly unbroken band of vegetation across the lower foothills above Owens Valley. However, closer inspection reveals a diverse flora, including a mixture of bitterbrush, rabbitbrush, desert peach, and spiny hopsage interspersed within the sagebrush. Before native perennial grasses were overgrazed and replaced by invasive annuals, a healthy mixture of bunchgrasses filled the sagebrush scrub zone. After uncommonly wet winters and springs, the high desert produces a vivid display of wildflowers from late spring into early summer.
Animal Life: Animals found in the sagebrush scrub zone are similar to those found in the pinyon-juniper woodland zone.
Geology
Although the origins of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon regions are somewhat speculative, geologists have determined the composition of the rock forming the area’s soaring peaks and deep canyons. Even a cursory examination by the untrained eye reveals granite to be the overwhelming rock type in the High Sierra. These light-colored, salt-and-pepper speckled, coarse-grained rocks include granite, granodiorite, and tonalite (formerly referred to as quartz diorite). These rocks also contain varying amounts of minerals such as quartz, feldspar, biotite, and hornblende.
The Sierra Nevada Batholith, a term geologists use to describe the massive pluton of rock forming the range stretching 300 miles in length and 50 miles in width, was formerly a band of molten magma below the earth’s surface. The magma eventually cooled and crystallized, and was subsequently uplifted and exposed to form the Sierra Nevada as we know them today.
A much smaller percentage of rock in the Sierra is metamorphic. Typically dark in color and variegated in appearance, metamorphic rocks are considered older than the much more common granitic rocks. Remnants of these rocks are scattered across the Sequoia and Kings Canyon region, and four distinct metamorphic terranes have been identified. A number of caves, including Crystal Cave near the Giant Forest and Boyden Cave near Kings Canyon, were discovered in concentrations of marble, a type of metamorphic rock.
An even smaller percentage of the region’s geologic composition includes volcanic rock. Within park boundaries, this rock type is nearly nonexistent, the lone exception being a very old volcanic intrusion near Windy Peak along the Middle Fork Kings River. Smatterings of other volcanic activity are evident in small pockets west of Kings Canyon and southeast of Sequoia near Golden Trout Creek. The most noticeable evidence of volcanism in the area occurs east of Kings Canyon National Park in the Big Pine Volcanic Field, where passing motorists on US Highway 395 can easily see cinder cones and lava flows.
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon area is home to some of North America’s most impressive canyons. Modern geologists recognize the importance of both erosion and glaciation in the formation of these canyons. In the lower elevations, the erosive power of water is clearly evident, resulting in V-shaped canyons, such as the lower South Fork and Middle Fork Kings River. The characteristic U-shaped canyons cut by former glaciers are found in the higher elevations.
Speculation on the role of glaciers in the sculpting of the upper canyons of the Sierra Nevada is
