Things to do in Fresno
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Yosemite National Park
Visit the homestead of one of the Revolutionary
Yosemite National Park in east central
California, stretches out over the Sierra Nevada Mountains covering
761,266 acres in the Madera, Tuolumne and Mariposa counties. Over
3.5 million people come here every year, with a lot of them spending
most of their time in a seven square mile area in Yosemite Valley.
The park became a World Heritage Site in 1984, with huge sequoia
groves, spectacular waterfalls, beautiful cliffs of granite,
magnificent clear streams and a marvelous biodiversity. The national
park, was part of the developing national park idea, although not
its first. With over 95% of the park designated wilderness, it is
one of the biggest and least fragmented habitats in the Sierra
Nevada mountains, with a large amount of plants and animals. The
elevation runs from 2000 feet to 13,000 plus feet, and has five
vegetation regions; alpine, sub-alpine, chaparral/oak forests, lower
and upper montane; which is lower than the sub-alpine areas of
mountains, but above the lowland regions. California has over 7000
varieties of plants, with half of them in the Sierra Nevada
mountains, and over 20% of that in Yosemite. Over 160 rare plants
thrive in the valley, with the unique formations and soil
composition. The geology of the park is characterized by the granite
rocks and remains of more ancient rocks. It was around 10 million
years ago that the mountains were raised up, and tipped to the east
so that the gentle slopes of the western side of the mountains could
be less accentuated and the deep canyons were formed. A million years
ago, ice and snow began to accumulate, and glaciers were formed at
the higher elevations, and guesses have put the thickness of the ice
at over 4000 feet. When these glacier moved, they began to form the
deep ravines and valleys that were sculpted including the U shape
valley that brings throngs of visitors here. Surrounded by
wilderness areas, Yosemite has the Ansel Adams Wilderness to the
southeast, Emigrant Wilderness in the north, and the Hoover
Wilderness in the northeast. Measuring some 1189 miles, Yosemite is
about the size of Rhode Island in the northeast part of the nation,
and is home to thousands of ponds and lakes, 350 miles of roads, 800
miles of trails and 1600 miles of streams. There are two federally
named wild and scenic rivers in the region, the Toulumne and the
Merced, that flow west through the foothills and into central
California. Most of the landforms were cut from the granite rock of
the Sierra Nevada Batholith, with some metamorphosed volcanic and
sedimentary rocks in the east by Mount Dana. They are called roof
pendants since they once belonged to the roof of the granite rock
that lay below. It was the erosion process that created the many
diverse domes, valleys and canyons that are found there today, with
many other extraordinary features abounding. Although Yosemite
Valley is about a percent of the park's massive areas, it is where
most of its visitors come to view and also stay. The El Capitan is a
huge granite cliff that looks out over the valley, and has grown
into the most popular rock climbing area in the country, and brings
climbers from all over the world. It is accessible year round, and
has a plethora of climbing routes. There are granite domes, called
Sentinel Rock and Half Dome that rise into the sky and have become
two of the most favorite. There are magnificent areas in the high
country of Yosemite, like the Kuna Crest, Tuolumne Meadows, Clark
Range, Dana Meadows and Cathedral Range that will keep you
captivated for hours. The Pacific Crest Trail and the Sierra crest
go through the park with peaks of red metamorphic rock, like Mount
Dana and Mount Gibbs, as well as many other granite peaks, like the
Mount Conness and Mount Lyell, which is the highest point in
Yosemite. You can find three spectacular ancient Giant Sequoia
trees, the Merced has 20, the Mariposa has 200, and the Tuolumne has
25. The fantastic trees grow bigger than any other species of tree,
growing into the tallest and the trees that live longer than any
other. There were many more before the last ice age, and in certain
places you can see the remnants.
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Fresno Metropolitan Museum
The museum has just recently
gone through a major renovation, and now has been restored to its
glorious beginnings, set within a 1922 Fresno Bee building, and
helped by millions of people around the state. The five story brick
building has terra cotta ornaments and arched windows, and was built
by George D. Hudnett, Inc of Sacramento, and cost was one million
dollars. It is an Italian Renaissance style architectural beauty
that was completely different from all other buildings in the early
20th century in this city's former styles. It would house the Fresno
Bee, the local newspaper, and numerous mythological Greek spirits
decorating the exterior. The McClathy family owned the paper, and as
it grew, it was expanded to include the radio station known as KMJ.
This caused the building to be increased in size in 1936, and again
in 1951, which saw the exterior decorations taken away, as well as
the brick façade. Growing in statue and size, during the 1950s and
1960s, with additional construction going on inside. The paper
eventually outgrew its space, and in the early 1970s, left the
building and it was slated to be sold. The owners wanted to take it
down in 1978, but the local banker, Lewis Eaton wanted to do
something else with it. He contacted Carlos McClatchy, and asked him
to stall the demolition, and said he wanted to put a museum there;
if the community felt likewise, and the engineers found out about
its stability. Carlos said he would wait, and Lewis got the
structural engineers to check it out. While the building was checked
out, public support grew, and it was decided and agreed that the
building would be perfect for a museum. In 1979, the Fresno
Metropolitan Museum of Art, History and Science was chartered and
Eaton named the first president of the board of directors needed to
oversee the works. The permanent collection contains landscape
paintings, many from the 19th and 20th centuries, which much of was
a gift from Dr. and Mrs. John D. Reife, with artists Chris
Jorgenson, David Cox, Thomas Hill, Hugo Anton Fisher and Maynard
Dixon. Another venue is the Charles and Sharon Small jigsaw puzzle
collection, with over 1200 puzzles, the William and Dorothy Petesch
Collection which are numerous caricatures from the 18th and 19th
centuries, decorative arts and crafts, Native American collection,
Ansel Adams photo collection, and many wonderful venues throughout
the year.
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Kings Canyon National Park
This national park is just
outside of Fresno, California, in the southern Sierra Nevada
mountains, and began in 1940 with over 462,900 acres that include
the General Grant National Park; which was started to protect the
General Grant Grove. The Sequoia National Park is located just to
the south of Yosemite, and many call it the Sequoia and Kings Canyon
National Parks and managed by the National Park service as one
locale. Kings Canyon was well known by local settlers as early as
the mid 1800s, and after John Muir visited the canyon and region in
the 1870s, it began getting attention. Muir couldn't believe how
much alike this canyon was with Yosemite. The future of the park was
in doubt for the next five decades, as some wanted to build a dam on
the west end, while many others preferred to have is preserved as a
state park. It was inaugurated into the national park in 1965, and
received the name from its river, Kings. The park is home to two
regions, the General Grant Grove, where the giant sequoias are
located, and the famous General Grant Tree, as well as the Redwood
Mountain Grove where the biggest sequoia grove in the world is
located. Over 15,000 sequoia trees are found here, with all having
over a foot in circumference in their bases, on a 3100 acre park.
The sequoia forests belong to the 202,000 acres of old-growth trees,
which are mostly conifer trees.
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