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30-501: The Teakettle Experimental Forest is a part of the Sierra National Forest that is set aside for research into forest ecology . The forest is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) east of Fresno, California , between Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks . The area is old-growth forest at 2,000 to 2,800 metres (6,600 to 9,200 ft) elevation and consists primarily of mixed-conifer and red fir forest common on

60-557: A continuous protected area linking Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon national parks. Former Sequoia National Park ranger Deanna Lynn Wulff founded the organization Unite the Parks to campaign for the monument's establishment. The proposal has been endorsed by numerous local businesses and organizations, a group of 200 scientists, the California Democratic Party, Democratic National Committee, Sierra Club, and

90-458: A tree indicator species , or by a lack of trees. The biotic zones include the foothill woodland zone from 1,000 to 3,000 feet (300 to 910 m) ( interior live oak ), the lower montane zone from 3,000 to 7,000 feet (910 to 2,130 m) ( Ponderosa pine ), the upper montane zone from 7,000 to 9,000 feet (2,100 to 2,700 m) ( lodgepole pine / red fir ), the subalpine zone from 9,000 to 9,500 feet (2,700 to 2,900 m) ( whitebark pine ), and

120-596: Is a bunkhouse cabin, dry laboratory, and storage garage. The experimental forest is gated and relatively remote. Sierra National Forest Sierra National Forest was the second National Forest created in California and the largest at the time. It covered over six million acres (24,000 km ) of the Sierra Nevada and was about four times the average area of typical California National Forests. Originally it embraced parts of eight counties from Tuolumne on

150-763: Is also a ski resort, China Peak , that operates under a special use permit. Great sailing opportunities exist at Huntington Lake . The Sierra National Forest is located within the Pacific Southwest region of the US Forest Service. The forest is divided into three ranger districts: Bass Lake Ranger District is north and west of the San Joaquin River . Its Ranger District office is located at 57003 Road 225 North Fork, California , 93643. The district includes 36 camp sites, 17 picnic sites, 7 Off Highway Vehicle Trails, and 10 trails. It includes

180-784: Is now the state of Ohio. Placed under the Department of the Interior when that department was formed in 1849, it was merged with the United States Grazing Service (established in 1934) to become the Bureau of Land Management on July 16, 1946. The GLO oversaw the surveying , platting , and sale of the public lands in the Western United States and administered the Homestead Act and

210-475: The Preemption Act in disposal of public lands. The frantic pace of public land sales in the 19th century American West led to the idiomatic expression "land-office business", meaning a thriving or high-volume trade. For most of the active period of public land settlement, district land offices were the basic operating units that conducted the business of transferring title. All transactions relative to

240-702: The President to withdraw timber lands from disposal. Grover Cleveland then created 17 forest reserves of nearly 18,000,000 acres (73,000 km ), which were initially managed by the GLO. In 1905, Congress transferred responsibility for these reserves to the newly created Forest Service , under the Department of Agriculture . Beginning in the early 20th century, the GLO shifted from a primary function of land sales to issuing leases and collecting grazing fees for livestock raised on public lands, and royalties from minerals off lands recently withdrawn from disposal under

270-780: The Stanislaus National Forest . The Sierra National Forest contains artifacts dating back over 10,000 years, mainly from indigenous people before written records started about 150 years ago. Around the late 1700s, the Fresno River marked the area between the Southern Sierra Miwok and the Chukchansi Yokuts , with the Western Mono living near today's Bass Lake . The borders between these groups were not clear-cut, showing that

300-507: The alpine zone from 9,500 feet (2,900 m) (above the tree line ). Some 383,000 acres (598 sq mi; 1,550 km ) of the forest are old growth , containing lodgepole pine ( Pinus contorta ) and red fir ( Abies magnifica ). A campaign to designate the national forest as a national monument was begun in 2015. The proposal for the 1,400,000-acre (5,700 km ) Range of Light National Monument would prevent new mining operations and phase out logging and grazing, resulting in

330-619: The 1940s. Research collaborators have come from the following institutions and agencies: California State University , Michigan Technological University , National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Goddard Space Flight Center , Oregon State University , University of California, Berkeley , University of California , University of Maryland , Virginia Commonwealth University , Universidad Metropolitana , University of Michigan , University of Nevada , University of Washington , USDA Forest Service , Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, Sierra National Forest, and Southern Research Station. There

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360-616: The BLM's Geographic Coordinates Database (GCDB) program has endeavored to generate coordinate values for each established PLSS corner using the official survey records of the GLO and BLM on a township basis. The GCDB data are available for download by the public in GIS shapefile format from the GeoCommunicator Land Survey Information System website. The GCDB coordinates are also available to the public in

390-462: The Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. The protection of old-growth trees would contribute to the 30 by 30 initiative. It is opposed by Congressman Tom McClintock and the logging industry. In December 2022, Congressmembers Jackie Speier and Jerry McNerney introduced a bill that would establish Range of Light National Monument comprising the entirety of Sierra National Forest and

420-636: The Forest Service Offices of Oakhurst (40343 Hwy 41, Oakhurst, California 93644), and the Clover Meadow Wilderness Office. High Sierra Ranger District is south and east of the San Joaquin River; it has its Ranger District office out of 29688 Auberry Rd P.O. Box 559 Prather, California 93651. This district contains 30 camp sites, 11 picnic sites, and 13 Off Highway Vehicle Trails. It also includes

450-851: The Miwok, Yokuts, and Mono territories often overlapped. The first timber sale on a California National Forest took place in the Sierra NF by the United States General Land Office in 1899. Sierra National Forest covers, in descending order of forestland area, the eastern portions of Fresno , Madera , and Mariposa counties, adjacent to the southern part of Yosemite National Park . It includes more than 1,300,000 acres (2,000 sq mi; 5,300 km ), at altitudes ranging from 900 to 13,986 feet (274 to 4,263 m) in elevation. The terrain includes rolling, oak-covered foothills, heavily forested middle elevation slopes and

480-547: The San Joaquin Gorge managed by the Bureau of Land Management . The new national monument would be administered by the National Park Service , which would manage land for conservation rather than multiple-use . Unite the Parks has also led a lawsuit to prevent logging in fisher habitat. United States General Land Office The General Land Office ( GLO ) was an independent agency of

510-894: The United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department of the Treasury . Starting with the enactment of the Land Ordinance of 1785 , which created the Public Land Survey System , the Treasury Department had already overseen the survey of the Northwest Territory , including what

540-700: The Withdrawal Act of 1910, as well as other custodial duties. Thus, beginning around 1900, the GLO gained a focus for conservation of renewable public resources, as well as for their exploitation. On July 16, 1946, the GLO was merged with the United States Grazing Service (established in 1934 under the Taylor Grazing Act ) to become the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the Interior Department responsible for administering

570-772: The Yosemite Sierra Visitor Bureau (40343 Highway 41, Oakhurst, California 93644); and the Fresno Air Attack Base which is co-located with the Sierra National Forest Emergency Communications Center (2307 and 2309 N Clovis Ave, Fresno, California 93727) at Fresno Yosemite International Airport . In addition, the forest has a close relationship with the Teakettle Experimental Forest which is deep inside

600-558: The boundary travels north to Yosemite Forks and moves west towards Miami Mountain, then heads north to return to the Merced River. The forest includes a number of scenic attractions, including Fresno Dome and Nelder Grove . Several reservoirs offer fishing and boating, including Bass Lake , Shaver Lake , Wishon Reservoir , and Courtright Reservoir . There are numerous hiking opportunities in wilderness areas: Ansel Adams , John Muir , Dinkey Lakes , Kaiser , and Monarch . There

630-422: The disposal of public land within a declared land district were handled through its land office by officials designated as registers , who recorded land applications, and receivers , who accepted payments for land and issued receipts. The position of receiver was abolished, July 1, 1925, and the functions devolved upon the register, whose title was changed to "manager" in 1946. The first of 362 district land offices

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660-755: The following Forest Service Offices; the High Sierra visitor information station near Mono Hot Springs on the Kaiser Pass Road, Eastwood visitor information center at Hwy 168 and Kaiser Pass Road at Huntington Lake , Dinkey Creek visitor information center on Dinkey Creek Road near the Dinkey Creek Campground, Supervisor's Office (an administrative Unit) contains the Sierra National Forest Supervisor's office (1600 Tollhouse Rd Clovis, California, 93611);

690-763: The forest and the San Joaquin Experimental Range which is just outside the forest boundaries. They both fall in the Pacific Southwest Research Station which is based in Berkeley, California . The ecology of the National Forest is typical for the western side of the southern Sierra Nevada: distributions of species are largely governed by climate, which is strongly dependent on altitude. The ecology can be described by biotic zones, which are marked by either

720-595: The north to Kern on the south and Mono and Inyo on the east. Initially its name was descriptive, but later when the Sierra was divided into different units this was no longer the case. President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the Sierra Forest Reserve on February 14, 1893. Four years later the south half became a separate unit and was named Sierra South during the "forest reserves" era. This designation

750-618: The park's northern border, then heads south to the Kings River near Deer Canyon. From there it moves down the Kings River canyon east; south of the river is the Sequoia National Forest. When it reaches Pine Flat Lake near Trimmer, it turns north towards Tollhouse and continues on to Auberry . From there Sierra National Forest moves on to North Fork , then west to form a small finger towards Coarsegold . Finally,

780-484: The remaining 264,000,000 acres (1,070,000 km ) of public lands still in federal ownership. An early commissioner was John McLean , later an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . The BLM makes images of GLO records (federal land patents, survey plats and field notes, land status records, and tract books) issued between 1787 and present publicly available on its website. Since 1990,

810-604: The tundra landscape of the High Sierra. The forest's boundary starts clockwise at the intersections of the Merced River , Sweetwater Creek and HWY 140 , then moves east following the Merced River canyon to the border with Yosemite National Park near El Portal . Then it follows the park's southern boundary until it reaches the Inyo National forest near Electra Peak . From there it travels south to its border with Kings Canyon National Park near Mount Goethe . It follows

840-690: The western slope of the Sierra Nevada . The forest was established in the 1930s when California state and federal agencies began exploring how the Central Valley of California's water supply might be increased through management of Sierra Nevada watersheds. In 1938, a 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres) area surrounding Teakettle Creek was designated the Teakettle Experimental Area and five drainages were chosen for study. Stream gauge stations and sediment basins were built in

870-597: Was dropped after the administrative transition to the National Forests on March 4, 1907. On July 1, 1908, the Sequoia National Forest , and Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks were established from this south portion of Sierra National Forest. Eastern portions of Sierra National Forest became the Inyo and Toiyabe National Forests; northern portions were used for Yosemite National Park and

900-614: Was opened at Steubenville, Ohio , on July 2, 1800; the last at Newcastle, Wyoming , on March 1, 1920. The peak year for land offices was 1890, with 123 in operation. The subsequent closing of the public domain gradually reduced the number of land offices, until, in 1933, only 25 offices remained. The GLO was placed under the Secretary of the Interior when the Department of the Interior was formed in 1849. Reacting to public concerns about forest conservation, Congress in 1891 authorized

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