A quick, two-day trip took us to these national parks for a view of the big trees, something I’ve always wanted to do. The drive was an easy, interesting 4 hours from our campground to the west entrance (east of Fresno).
We checked the second biggest tree in the world, General Grant (although he was not the tallest nor the oldest, he was heavy and wide). The height on those sequoias just amazed me – poor Ron’s neck bone spurs were acting up, gawking up at them like that!
The Kings Canyon road starts out at 7000 feet and drops to 2000 feet, a beautiful, twisty-turny ride around steep switchbacks. Flowers were blooming everywhere and the mountains were quickly losing their snow in the balmy 85 degree weather. The King River was so full of snow melt it was a raging torrent, and the waterfall was so huge I couldn’t get close to it with the camera.
Camp was very simple – we set up a pickup tent so we would have a little protection from the marauding bears. I made supper, which consisted of left over turkey, cream of chicken soup and broccoli over instant mashed potatoes (I think it might have tasted better with canned chicken). Then we cleaned things up and put all the foodstuffs in the big red-brown bear box. The campground was very nice, as the sites were widely spaced apart and the bathrooms had real running water! We both slept pretty well, even for tent sleeping.
The next day we ventured south to General Sherman’s tree and the Big Tree Grove. The mountains were so beautiful in the early morning. A bear was scratching and rustling around in the grass quite a ways away from us, so yes, all the work moving food into the bear boxes was a good thing! General Sherman was the biggest tree in the world (not the oldest, nor the tallest, but fattest and heaviest!) The pictures can’t capture the majesty nor the height of these, but I tried.
The Big Tree Grove was centered around a swampy area and featured many of the huge giant redwoods. I really liked the dogwood trees blooming, since last time I had noticed them it was fall and they had really cool seed pods at that time. The sequoia cones are tiny, the baby trees are so cute, and fire scars indicate the heat needed to open the seeds and make new trees.
After a lovely stroll through the swamp, we decided to head south and take on the curvy road out of the park. We lucked out and instead of waiting 1 hour for the road construction, we got right behind the pilot car and away we went! Lunch was at the hospital rock (named after early explorers who had accidents and were nursed here, under the ancient petroglyphs.) The native Americans had quite a beautiful valley to live in. We ran into a huge reservoir, an unexpected cooling force in the 100+ degree heat! We drove the 4 hours back to Morro Bay to our cool, foggy campground with 55 degrees. Brr!
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