Distance: 2.5 miles (4 km) round trip
Trailhead Elevation: 6,200 feet (1,860 meters)
Elevation Gain: 400 feet (120 meters) elevation loss to the grove.
The red line shows the trail to Tuolume Grove. Actually, it's not a trail, but the old Big Oak Flat Road, now the domain of pedestrians rather than stagecoaches. Half a mile past the grove the road forks, with the left fork veering west to the park's Big Oak Flat entrance near Hodgdon Meadow and the right fork heading north to the Aspen Valley Road.
The trail heads steadily downhill through thick woods all the way to the grove. There aren't any notable highlights between the trailhead and the grove, but it's a short, easy hike - especially en route to the grove.
After the first mile of the trail, during which you'll pass enough wood to panel every basement in 1972, you can't really be faulted for adopting the attitude that when you've seen one tree, you've seen them all. Which makes all the more remarkable the impression the giant sequoias will make on you, however jaded you are, when you round the corner and enter their midst. These are really, really big & majestic trees.