Boole Tree

Boole Tree is a giant sequoia in Converse Basin Grove, Sequoia National Forest, outside Kings Canyon National Park. The Forest Service calls it the largest sequoia on National Forest System land and the eighth-largest known sequoia. Reaching it takes a moderate 2.5-mile loop, so this is a proper outing rather than a roadside glance. I’d save it for a day with time for the drive and walk, especially if you’re interested in the sequoia logging story.

Follow the signed Converse Basin access from Highway 180 onto dirt Forest Road 13S55 and continue to the trailhead at the road’s end. The last stretch is a forest road, and visitors describe it as rough; allow time for that slower approach. The Forest Service gives a restroom at the trailhead, but there’s no drinkable water.

Converse Basin was heavily logged in the late 1800s. A few monarch sequoias escaped, and Boole is one of them. The surrounding grove is now a mix of surviving old trees, huge stumps and younger sequoias growing back through the logged land.

Stump Meadow is a separate stop on the drive to Boole Tree. Its giant cut stumps show the scale of the logging, while young sequoias have filled in around them. Tree rings in the stumps help researchers reconstruct past weather, fires and droughts; the oldest known sequoia stump in Converse Basin is just over 3,200 years old.

A section above the tree can give you a rare look down toward its crown, so pause when the trail opens above it. The loop also has broad views of the Kings River gorge and high Sierra Nevada.