Sequoia & Kings Canyon Trip

Sequoia and King Canyon National Parks are about 5 hours north of Orange County up hwy 99 and 195. On the East side of the park is Death Valley and Whitney Portal and to the North is Yosemite National Park.

Our good friend Marni came out from Wisconsin to take the trip with us. So we met at the Harbor House Cafe to have breakfast and get fueled up before the 5 hour drive to Sequoia.

At the end of October the crowds are gone and the North part of the park is partially closed due to the impending Winter. We camped in the South part of the park in the Potwisha Campground which is close to the entry of the park and at only about 1500 feet. We had a great spot near the bathrooms and plenty of room for our tents and a campfire at night.

Sara and Marni getting fueled up in the morning before beginning our hikes in the area….

The first goal was to see the Crystal Cave, which is easier said than done because they only take about 30 people a day.So we got up early and went to the Ranger Station to get in line.

We were second in line so we had our pick of the 11AM or 2PM tours, 11 sounded good so we had more time to hike in the afternoon. So we were off to the campsite to get packed for the afternoon of fun.

On the way back to camp we stopped at Tunnel Rock at the side of the road. This huge granite rock defies gravity and we had some fun playing under and around it.

Sara and Marni could almost jump and hold onto this rock :}

After some fun at the rock we stopped to gather some wood by the side of the road. There was tons of dead wood by the side of the road that was easy pickings and made for great fires in the cool night…

Next it was time to drive North the Crystal Cave. We had heard at the Ranger Station that they were doing only two tours today and they were both special dark spooky ones for Halloween so we were psyched.

We parked, grabbed some water and after a short Ranger talk we stared the hike down to the cave. There were stairways, hiking trails, streams and waterfalls

and a bridge to cross…this one gave us a welcome into the Halloween nature of this guided tour…

As we neared the cave we saw the group of people waiting for the tour to start and here is Marni and Sara posing with the half dead Part Ranger that was to be our guide

A short hike from this location was the mouth of Crystal Cave and where the tour started…

There was amazing rock formations on the inside of the cave

Since it is formed by water it is no wonder it looks like coral under the water…

This one was the most dramatic looking like a church organ, delicate and colorful…

Video inside Crystal Cave

After our hike we sat down for some lunch and then headed North for some more hiking…

The further we drove north the colder and more overcast it became on this day…we started at the visitors center/museum at The Giant forest..where we learned about the tree’s and how they grow and thrive..

Giant Forest Museum

That huge tree right outside the Museum is called Sentinel..and yes it is as big as it looks. Here are some other views of this cool tree…

To put it in perspective this tree is 257 feet (78.5 meters) tall; and this guy isn’t even the biggest..more to come.

We learned that these great tree’s are tall but don’t have very deep roots so they grow in groves and intertwine their roots to hold eachother up (there is a concept there 😉 – like these three…

We want to see what kind of ground we could cover on the trails while there was still light so we picked up a map and headed to the trailhead

As we hiked higher the fog started flowing in but we still had light and we had gear for the weather.. so we hiked through meadows.

And we saw the balanced rock… but the view was concealed from us today..

We also hiked to see Tharps Log. Hale D Tharp is credited with discovering the Giant Forest…

and he lived in this hallowed out log cabin in the summers until Sequoia national forest was established in 1890. Yes that means that Sequoia was the second national park established in the US after Yosemite. We had heard from some other hikers that they had seen a bear at Tharps log but by the time we got there he was no where to be found.

Since it was Halloween time and it was foggy some of the burned out tree’s took on a eerie look, and Sara noticed this tree as we started hiking back…think of a scary soundtrack in the background..

On our way back to the main I almost ran into a group of deer right on the side of the trail, there must have been 6 or 7 of them not more than 5 feet away. This young 4 point buck was looking ready to take charge…

Marni and Sara wanted to get a view of the tree’s looking up the trunk so they walked up to this tree and did hand stands so they could look up and see them…

check out how small they are compared to the trunk…

Since it was getting darker and the fog was getting wetter we walked to the road and followed it through this huge log… and back down to the museum and our car.

Day 2 started with breakfast and then we off driving to meet up with some big tree’s :).

Our first stop was Moro Rock.

Moro rock is a granite dome with an amazing lookout into the valley..here is a shot of it from below

On our first day the rock was socked in with fog but this morning there was sunny blue skies and we were excited to see the views..

This is how the trail started..the CCC really knew how to build a trail…

Then more climbing and having fun..

The group at the top

and the rewarding view into the valley…

Video of Climbing up Moro Rock to the lookout…

Our next stop after Moro Rock was the really big Sequoia’s and their boss General Sherman. We started on the Sherman Tree trail..

It is just a short hike down a nice wide trail to General Sherman. It is really hard to take this tree in it is so large.. this is just the base…

With a height of 83.8 metres (275 ft), a diameter of 7.7 metres (25 ft), and an estimated age of 2,300–2,700 years, it is among the tallest, widest and longest lived of all trees on the planet.

After seeing the big general we went on to the Congress Trail to see some of his brothers..

Since the forest needs to burn for the new Sequoia cones to germinate many of these Giant Sequoias have huge burn sections to their trunks like this one below….

The whole time we felt so small in comparison to these amazing giants..

Even when they had fallen down on the ground…

We had some time left in the day and wanted to do another hike. The park ranger at the visitors center recommended the Little Baldy Peak Trail and is was on our way back to camp.

We parked on the side of the road at Little Baldy Saddle

You can see the trail head on the left side of the picture…

The trail was very vertical and well but clean and easy to follow. It took us through meadows of new pine trees..

and to a spectacular granite lookout with another 360 view of the valley with Sara at the peak…

The way the sun was hitting the top of this lookout we also had to have some fun creating shadow images of ourselves..

On the drive down to camp we darted off the side of the road to catch the sun setting.. it was beautiful with just a hint of moon

Back at camp we got dinner going and opened a bottle of wine. Here you can see Marni’s utilitarian wine glass lighted by her headlamp..

We had plenty of wood from out gathering, and it was getting chilly so we got a nice fire going and started making desert with the pudgy pie maker – let me ask you have you ever tried a pudgy pie with Nutella and banana’s? So Gooood!

After a great night sleep we had breakfast and cleaned up the camp to drive home. After looking at the map we noticed that there was a great hike to Marble Falls with a trail head right in our campground. So we walked over to the Trail head and started our ascent.

It started our cold but got warmer and warmer as the sun woke up in the valley… the trail was well laid out and easy to follow even though we were the only ones out there…