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50 free Sequoia National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Sequoia National Park trivia quiz covers America's second national park, the 1890 preserve in California's southern Sierra Nevada that holds the biggest tree on Earth and the highest peak in the lower 48. It ranges across the General Sherman Tree and the Giant Forest, Moro Rock, Tunnel Log, Crystal Cave, Tokopah Falls, Mineral King and Mount Whitney, plus the bears, fishers and 270 caves that fill the backcountry. There is plenty of history too: the Monache and Yokuts peoples, homesteader Hale Tharp's hollow-log cabin, the socialist Kaweah Colony that renamed a tree for Karl Marx, Benjamin Harrison's 1890 park act, the Buffalo Soldiers who policed the park under Captain Charles Young, the Sierra Club's fight to keep Disney out of Mineral King, and the 2021 fire that had rangers wrapping General Sherman in foil. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a Generals Highway car game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Yosemite, Redwood and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sequoia National Park is in the southern part of which mountain range?
Sierra Nevada
It lies east of Visalia and is run jointly with the national park to its north.
Q 02Which national park adjoins Sequoia to the north and is administered together with it?
Kings Canyon
UNESCO named the pair the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve in 1976.
Q 03In what year was Sequoia National Park established, making it the second national park in the U.S.?
1890
Yellowstone came first, in 1872; Yosemite followed Sequoia by a matter of days.
Q 04Which president signed the law creating Sequoia National Park?
Benjamin Harrison
The act ended logging in the big-tree grove, where thousands of trees had already been felled.
Q 05What is the name of the largest known living tree on Earth by volume, which grows in the park?
General Sherman
It is about 275 feet tall and 25 feet across, with an estimated 52,500 cubic feet of trunk.
Q 06The park's biggest tree is named after a general from which war?
The American Civil War
Naturalist James Wolverton, who had served under Sherman in the 9th Indiana Cavalry, is said to have named it in 1879.
Q 07In 1886 a utopian socialist colony renamed the park's biggest tree after whom?
Karl Marx
The colony disbanded in 1892, largely because the new park killed its logging economy, and the old name came back.
Q 08Roughly how old is the park's largest tree estimated to be?
2,300 to 2,700 years
It is neither the tallest, widest nor oldest tree alive, but it is among the leaders in all three.
Q 09In January 2006 what happened to the park's biggest tree, without any witnesses?
Its largest branch broke off
The branch was over 6 feet thick and 98 feet long, bigger than most tree trunks, and it cratered the walkway.
Q 10How did firefighters protect the park's biggest tree from the KNP Complex Fire in September 2021?
Wrapped its base in foil
The park was closed from mid-September to mid-December 2021 because of that fire.
Q 11Which grove in the park contains five of the ten most massive trees on Earth?
Giant Forest
It covers 1,880 acres above 6,000 feet and has more than 40 miles of trails, making it the most accessible grove of all.
Q 12What is the highest point in the contiguous United States, which lies within the park?
Mount Whitney
At 14,505 feet it sits on the park's eastern edge, and the High Sierra Trail runs to it from a meadow in the main grove.
Q 13Which fallen giant sequoia, cut through in 1938, lets cars drive under a park road?
Tunnel Log
The tree fell of natural causes in 1937; the tunnel is 8 feet high and 17 feet wide.
Q 21Which homesteader built a home inside a hollow fallen sequoia log in the park's main grove?
Hale Tharp
John Muir stayed in the cabin on his visits, and Tharp's Log can still be seen in its original spot.
Q 22Which Native American people lived permanently in the park's Kaweah River foothills?
Monache
Their pictographs survive at Hospital Rock and Potwisha, alongside bedrock mortars used to grind acorns.
Q 23Why did giant sequoias turn out to be poor timber trees, ending the logging boom?
They splinter easily when felled
Thousands were felled anyway before the 1890 park act stopped the cutting.
Q 14Which granite dome in the centre of the park is climbed by a 351-step stairway built in the 1930s?
Moro Rock
The CCC-built stairway is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the top looks across to the Great Western Divide.
Q 15Who built the stairway up the park's famous granite dome?
Civilian Conservation Corps
The dome stands at 6,725 feet between the main grove and the meadow at the end of the road.
Q 16Which is the only commercial cave open to visitors in the park?
Crystal
Discovered in 1918, it stays a constant 48 F and is seen only on guided tours.
Q 17Which cave in the park is California's longest, with nearly 17 miles of surveyed passages?
Lilburn
The park has more than 270 known caves, and Ursa Minor was found as recently as August 2006.
Q 18Most of the park's caves are dissolved out of which rock?
Marble
It is limestone cooked by the heat and pressure of the rising mountain batholith.
Q 19Which Buffalo Soldier units managed Yosemite and Sequoia before the National Park Service existed?
24th Infantry and 9th Cavalry
They built infrastructure and patrolled the park, helping to shape the modern ranger's job.
Q 20Which officer, the third African American graduate of West Point, led the Buffalo Soldiers in Sequoia?
Charles Young
He dedicated a tree to a famous Black educator and complained to the Interior Secretary about tourists carving their names in the redwoods.
Q 24Which company's Mineral King ski resort plan did the Sierra Club defeat before the site joined the park in 1978?
Walt Disney
Mineral King takes its name from an 1873 mining district and is now the park's highest developed site.
Q 25Which meadow, called the 'Gem of the Sierra' by John Muir, is the western end of the High Sierra Trail?
Crescent
The trail crosses the Great Western Divide on its way east to the highest peak in the lower 48.
Q 26In what year was the last California grizzly killed, at Horse Corral Meadow inside this park?
1922
Black bears remain, and are notorious for breaking into cars for unattended food.
Q 27Roughly what percentage of the two jointly run parks is designated wilderness?
84%
No road crosses the range anywhere inside the park.
Q 28Which town sits just outside the park's southern entrance at Ash Mountain?
Three Rivers
Ash Mountain, at 1,700 feet, holds the only California Foothills ecosystem protected by the Park Service.
Q 29Which road links the park's main grove to the General Grant Grove in the neighbouring park?
Generals Highway
Its name nods to the two big trees at either end.
Q 30Which waterfall, 1,200 feet high, is reached by an easy 1.7-mile walk from the park's biggest campground?
Tokopah Falls
The trail follows a fork of the Kaweah River into a granite-walled canyon.