Sequoia/King's Canyon National Parks, Ca

After leaving the LA area, we headed for Vasalia, Ca, which is near Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks. We camped about 30 miles from the entrance of Sequoia, and once there, we learned how winding, narrow, and under construction the road into Sequoia was! The park also discouraged vehicles over 22 ft driving the roads. Our truck is exactly 22 ft long and extra wide because of the dual tires. To avoid the driving hassles, we went to the park twice, once on a private day tour, and the second time using a shuttle from Vasalia and then taking a shuttle inside the park. Both were worth it and sure made life and sightseeing easier!!

Sequoia Nat Park was beautiful and our first day on the tour we saw the highlights, including Moro Rock, a huge granite rock which can be climbed up a stairway, (elevation of 6725 ft at the top), Tunnel Log, which has an opening to drive through, and the Giant Forest, where some of the largest Giant Sequoia Trees reside. The Giant Sequoias are spectacular! Although not the tallest trees in the world, they are the largest in volume. The General Sherman tree is said to be the largest living thing in the world, according to volume. Not only are the trees huge, it is hard to imagine they have been living for such a long time. General Sherman is estimated to be over 3000 years old! Our guide, Stephanie, was great, and explained all about the forest and what the trees need to survive and regenerate. Fire is an essential part. The parks now know that not all fires should be prevented and most are essential for a healthy redwood forest.

Our second day at Sequoia, we decided to do some hiking. Our first hike was at Crescent Meadow, about 2 miles in total. To our delight, in the meadow were two bears, looking for food! They weren't close enough to make us nervous, although Art was standing behind a log while I was getting some pictures! Up to that point, we hadn't seen much wildlife, other than some large chipmunks! On the same trail, we saw Tharp's log, a cabin made from a fallen Sequoia in the mid 1800's. After lunch, we decided to try one more trail that was labeled "easy". It was a 3.4 mile round trip trail along the Tokopah River to see the Tokopah Falls. Pretty quickly it started to elevate and was steep in places, rocky in others, and had streams we needed to cross that were flowing down to the river! "Easy"???? Art was carrying a heavy backpack, so we decided to hide it behind a tree to make the hike easier. Once we left it, we worried about forgetting where it was, or if a bear would smell the 2 sandwiches we had inside! We were so proud we made it to the end, and the falls were well worth seeing! By the way, we did find the backpack intact on the way down!

Since there was an easier road to get to King's Canyon Nat Park, we drove there on our own. We went from the San Joaquin Valley, flat, rich agricultural land, full of citrus trees and grapevines, to an elevation of 6000 ft in the park! There were gorgeous mountains, granite cliffs, and the King's River, which was rushing and roaring due to the melting snow in the mountains! Yes, we did see piles of snow in the higher elevations! We drove to the end of the road, where Zumwalt Meadow was and happened to be in time for a tour by a park ranger. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at Roaring River Falls and saw Grizzly Falls, both of which were beautiful! Our most exciting adventure at King's Canyon was our trip to see where loggers of the 1800's had cleaned out a whole grove of Giant Sequoia trees and left huge stumps and only one tree alive, the Boole Tree. The road to this area was narrow, winding, unpaved, and went down into the forest area. Art had just mentioned he hoped no one was coming the other way, when a large SUV met us at a curve!!!! The other driver managed to get over to let us pass, and Art told him he was "our worst nightmare"! Shortly after that, we decided we had seen enough large stumps, found a place to turn around, and headed back to the main road. Never did see the remaining live tree!