BLM ecologist Russ Lewis found a small, previously unrecorded one this year on Case Mountain, just outside Sequoia. The Park Service is justifiably proud of its groves, but they are essentially tourist groves. Every summer, hundreds of thousands of visitors troop up to see the General Sherman tree, the world's biggest. Fewer hike outlying trails to see less-accessible groves. But on Case Mountain, the groves are wild.
Public access is by foot only.
There are no hiking trials, no public facilities of any kind. There are giant sequoias that few modern humans have ever seen. The BLM has turned the 23,000-acre mountain over to research, and hydrologists and ecologists are having a field day. But Case is in peril. The place is just ripe.