A fallen giant sequoia tree at Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park after the Mono wind event on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021.
© Yosemite National ParkA fallen giant sequoia tree at Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park after the Mono wind event on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021.
In a stunning display of nature's force, officials at Yosemite National Park said Thursday that a powerful wind storm that ripped through the park last week caused 15 giant sequoia trees to fall in Mariposa Grove, a landmark forest visited by millions of people over the past 150 years.

Originally, officials thought that just two of the massive trees had fallen. But as they have inspected the area on the park's southern edges in recent days, they discovered wider destruction in the awe-inspiring grove, which was first set aside for protection in 1864 by President Abraham Lincoln.

"We have extensive damage in the park," said Scott Gediman, a Yosemite park spokesman. "Millions and millions of dollars. There could be more giant sequoias down. We are continuing the damage assessment."


The grove's sequoias are among the largest living things on earth, reaching up to 285 feet tall, with bark more than a foot thick and dating back 2,000 years. Individual trees standing in the grove today stood there when Julius Caesar ruled the Roman Empire, and Alexander the Great led armies through Western Asia. They were there for 1,000 years before the Great Wall of China was built or the first stones laid to build the famed cathedrals of Europe.

Gediman said that none of the grove's most-famous trees — the ones that have names and signs — including its largest, the Grizzly Giant, estimated at 2,700 years old, had toppled. But the trees that fell were massive, and some trees damaged boardwalks, a restroom and other facilities that were built in Mariposa Grove as part of a $40 million restoration project that reopened to the public three years ago.

There are about 500 mature giant sequoias in the Mariposa Grove. The storm, which toppled 3% of them, caused eight to fall in the upper grove and seven in the lower grove. Gediman said he is unaware of any storm in the park's 156-year history having knocked down so many of the ancient giants. Although visitors will be saddened, he said, the event is part of nature, not unlike when beloved animals die.

"Yosemite National Park by definition is a wild place," he said. "Natural occurrences like fires, floods, rockfalls and wind events happen. That's part of the story of the park. We're thankful that nobody got hurt. It's our hope we'll see new trees germinate. It's part of the ever-changing nature of the park."

A giant sequoia tree fell in the Mariposa Grove at Yosemite National Park during a wind storm on Jan. 18 and 19, 2021, one of at least 15 mature sequoias that toppled.
© Yosemite National ParkA giant sequoia tree fell in the Mariposa Grove at Yosemite National Park during a wind storm on Jan. 18 and 19, 2021, one of at least 15 mature sequoias that toppled.
The park was expected to reopen Saturday after being closed due to storm damage. But heavy snow this week from an atmospheric river storm that soaked the Bay Area, Santa Cruz Mountains and Big Sur caused dozens more trees in Yosemite Valley to fall, taking out power lines and closing roads. Those trees were oaks, cedars and pines. Now, Gediman said, the park will reopen Monday morning. When it does, it will be open 24 hours a day.

Upper Pines Campground will open on Feb. 8. Yosemite Valley Lodge and the Ahwahnee hotel will open on Feb. 5. Visitors will be able to enter the park using Highway 140, Highway 120 from the west, and Hetch Hetchy Road. Areas south of Yosemite Valley — including Badger Pass, Wawona, Mariposa Grove, South Entrance and Wawona Road — will remain closed until further notice.

The wind storm was an event for the record books.

On Jan. 18, it raged out of the east, tearing through the Central Sierra Nevada. The winds, known as Mono Winds, because they can originate near Mono Lake on the California-Nevada border, periodically rush over the Sierra's granite ridges, causing significant damage similar to Santa Ana winds in Southern California. The National Weather Service reported gusts from the storm reached 110 mph at Cascadel Heights, about 20 miles south of Yosemite's southern boundary near Oakhurst.

"The winds get funneled through the canyons. They accelerate like winds through buildings in a downtown," said Frank Dean, president of the Yosemite Conservancy, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco that funds projects in the park.

Dean, a former Yosemite ranger in the 1990s, said his organization is committed to rebuilding the facilities that were wrecked in the storm. Much of the funding will probably come from federal disaster funds, he said. Crews already have removed a red fir tree that hit the restroom building in Mariposa Grove, he added, and will remove ponderosa pines and other trees that fell across the wooden boardwalks. He said it could be months before the grove reopens to the public.

"It's distressing, but we'll get it repaired, working with the park service," Dean said.

The storm toppled other trees throughout the park. It damaged about 20 employee homes and privately owned cabins near Wawona, and crushed about 20 cars, Gediman said.

Overall, the storms have done more damage to Yosemite than any storms since historic floods in 1997 caused $200 million in repairs and restoration, Gediman said.

The wind storm is the latest setback for California's iconic forests, coming after lightning-caused wildfires devastated the coast redwoods at Big Basin Redwoods State Park near Santa Cruz and burned hundreds of giant sequoias in about 20 groves in Sequoia National Forest in August. The redwoods in Big Basin, although blackened, already are re-sprouting new green growth and are expected to survive.

Coast redwoods are the world's tallest trees. Sequoias are the world's largest. Both species have shallow root systems, however.

"That seems to be their Achilles heel," Dean said.

Dean said parks managers have done a good job thinning brush around the awe-inspiring sequoias in Mariposa Grove and in other places, like in Sequoia National Park, to reduce fire danger in recent decades. But there are other thinning projects the Yosemite Conservancy is undertaking in other groves, and a new concern — bark beetles, which seem to be affecting some sequoias, he said.

"I used to say sequoias are too big to fail," Dean said. "But in the last few years, it's pretty scary to see how many have been taken out."

A fir tree smashed into a newly built restroom at Yosemite National Park in the Mariposa Grove during a wind storm on Jan. 18 and 19. The area underwent $40 million in renovations three years ago.
© Yosemite National ParkA fir tree smashed into a newly built restroom at Yosemite National Park in the Mariposa Grove during a wind storm on Jan. 18 and 19. The area underwent $40 million in renovations three years ago.
Yosemite National Park
© National Park ServiceYosemite National Park will be closed until Monday Feb. 1, 2021 due to damage from a wind storm and heavy snows, which toppled trees, took out power and damaged buildings and roads. Shown here is the southern entrance on Thursday Jan. 28, 2021.