| Mountain Home Grove | |
| Map: | USA |
| Relief: | 1 |
| Location: | Giant Sequoia National Monument (Tulare County) |
| Nearest City: | Springville, CA |
| Coordinates: | 36.24°N -118.6717°W |
| Area: | 4800acres |
| Governing Body: | U.S. Forest Service, Mountain Home State Forest, and Balch County Park |
Mountain Home Grove is a grove of giant sequoia trees located in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and includes some of the largest trees in the world.
Mountain Home Grove is located partly in Balch Park, which is administered by Tulare County, California, partly in the Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest (MHDSF), and partly in Giant Sequoia National Monument, which was formerly in Sequoia National Forest. The grove includes four of the 20 largest giant sequoia trees (by volume), as well as several other notable trees. This makes Mountain Home the second largest grove of sequoias. Only the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park is larger. Because of easy access from the cities of Fresno and Porterville, and far fewer visitors than in the groves in Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks, the Mountain Home Grove is considered one of the best places to see giant sequoias.
John Muir in some words he wrote in 1875 on Yosemite, but did not publish until 1890, described the sequoia groves in the upper drainage of the north fork of the Tule River (i.e., the Mountain Home Grove) as "the finest block of Sequoia in the entire belt". Nonetheless, logging began here in the 1870s, and in the next few years many of the big trees were felled, including the Centennial tree, which many at the time believed to be the largest tree on earth. Fortunately, pioneers John Doyle and Jesse Hoskins in the 1880s acquired separate tracts of land in the heart of these big trees, Doyle for a time operating a resort here that he called "Summer Home", and Hoskins simply hoping to save the big trees from being cut down. Another entrepreneur, Andrew Jackson Doty, with his wife Sarah built just outside the grove, not far from Hoskins' and Doyle's trees, a popular hotel that they named "Mountain Home", and this is the name by which the grove came to be known.
Whereas many trees in the Mountain Home Grove were logged, those on the Doyle and Hoskins tracts were saved. Today Doyle's "Summer Home" is part of Balch Park, a Tulare County Park; and much of the surrounding forest, including Hoskins' stand of trees, are part of a California State conservation project known as the Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest. Although logging continued until 1956 in the unprotected parts of the grove, there has been no significant tree cutting since, except to mitigate fire danger and to protect the largest trees. The Mountain Home Grove on 15 April 2000 became part of the newly created Giant Sequoia National Monument, under the management of the U.S. Forest Service, with Balch Park continuing under jurisdiction of Tulare County, and the State Demonstration Forest remaining under control of the State of California.
Hoskins and Doyle identified and named many of the big trees in the Mountain Home Grove, but a century later retired mathematics teacher Wendell Flint, with the help of photographer Mike Law, began searching for large sequoias that the early tree hunters had overlooked. They discovered, and subsequently measured and named, several sequoias that are now considered to be among the largest living trees on earth, including three trees in the Mountain Home Grove that are now included in the top forty largest trees in terms of volume.
Many trees in the grove were destroyed or damaged by the Castle Fire in 2020. It is estimated that between 31% and 42% of giant sequoias were destroyed in groves affected by the Castle Fire.[1]
Some of the noteworthy trees in Mountain Home Grove are listed below.