Sierra National Forest: Nearly One and a Half Million Acres
Near Oakhurst, California
The Sierra National Forest surrounds Oakhurst on three sides, a vast federal land holding of more than one point three million acres stretching from the foothill zone near Oakhurst to the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada above ten thousand feet. The forest was established by President Benjamin Harrison in eighteen ninety three, three years after Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks were created, as part of a national reckoning with the rapid deforestation that had stripped American forests during the logging era. The Sierra National Forest contains an extraordinary range of terrain and ecosystems.
At its lower elevations near Oakhurst it is dominated by blue oak, foothill pine, and chaparral. Climbing through Oakhurst's elevation of roughly twenty four hundred feet, the forest transitions to ponderosa pine and black oak, then to mixed conifer forest with sugar pine and white fir, and at the highest elevations to subalpine terrain with red fir and lodgepole pine. The forest contains five wilderness areas, dozens of lakes and reservoirs, hundreds of miles of hiking trails, and a significant portion of the Kings River and San Joaquin River watersheds.
Managing timber harvest, grazing, recreation, and watershed protection in a forest that receives millions of visitors a year has made the Sierra National Forest one of the most complex units in the federal system.
