Sequoia National Park to the CA Coast

7/18/11

Today we awoke at our free camping spot - just an extra-large pullout along the gorgeous Kings River. The national park is actually intermixed with national forest, so in certain spots roadside camping is both free and easy. We had a great fire the night before using smooth river wood as fuel. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of buying curry paste from a Chinese company for dinner. What do the Chinese know about curry?? Apparently little compared to Thais or Indians. Curses. Never again. 

Free tent site overlooking the Kings River

Today we drove into Sequoia National Park and enjoyed the "big trees" that we had heard so much about. We started at the Grant Grove, which features the General Grant tree and several other named behemoths. One tree, the Fallen Monarch, had fallen over and was hollow all the way through, making for a great tunnel. Giant sequoias are quite impervious to disease, decay and fungus, so it was still in incredible shape considering it had been dead for over a hundred years. It even had been used as a camp for the cavalry group that protected the nascent national park before park rangers were created.
 

I lifted this picture from Wikipedia. It shows the F Cavalry and a fallen tree in Yosemite National Park around 1916. (It was mislabeled as the "Fallen Monarch," but it is a different tree. I included it anyways because it is an impressive picture!)

Robert enjoyed Gamlin Cabin, built in 1872 by a homesteader and later used as the first ranger station in the park.

Here is a picture of an entire "big tree." Notice Robert leaning against the fence at the base of the tree. These trees have shallow root systems, so visitors are required to stay within the fenced boundaries.

Here is General Grant, behind some very intrusive flowery bushes.

Robert and I did the touristy thing and got a biker dude to take our picture in front of the sign.

Our food stores were getting low, but we had plenty of sticky rice and BBQ sauce! We found a nice park bench near the General Sherman tree to eat lunch.

Robert also enjoyed some hand meat from a can. The BudLight completed our meal nicely.

Here, mis amigos, is General Sherman - largest living thing and largest tree by volume.

I gave it a hug (while respecting the "no climbing the fence" rule).

We took a walk through the grove on the Congress Trail, escaping the hordes of Sherman visitors. Robert took a quick detour to drain the main vein.

Tree Pose, in front of a big tree.

Robert liked the trees that grew so close together that they ended up growing together after a fire burned and fused their bark.

As we were walking, a few trees chose to gift us some cones. Robert really wanted to keep the gift, but we opted for a picture instead.

"Really, really big tree. Itty-bitty cone." - Robert

Here again, I hiked away from the tree far enough to capture the entire thing in one exposure. Robert is at the base of tree for scale.

I enjoyed the roots of the fallen trees.

Here are the central-most rings of a trunk slab from one of the fallen trees. Few believed that trees this large existed, so one of the trees was sacrificed and cut into several large chunks and hauled to the Chicago World's Fair.

As a reward for waiting so patiently for a man to photograph his daughters in front of General Sherman, he took our picture as well.

Robert found a little blue pill that said "eat me" on it and after doing so, he grew to mammoth proportions and dwarfed General Sherman!

We took a detour on our way out of the park to see the Tunnel Log. If you have a picture in your head of a car driving through a still standing tree, it is probably from the Wawona Tree that was hacked up to make a tourist attraction in 1881. It was located in Yosemite National Park, but fell over in the winter of 1968. Today we know better than to annihilate living legends like this. I lifted the picture below from the NPS website.

 

 The Wawona Tree, Yosemite NP

Douglas Grove, near Tunnel Log. I loved how close these trees grew together.

I'm glad we stopped by the Douglas Grove because we had the opportunity to see this awesome black bear. (Robert manned the bear spray and I, the tripod.)

He was completely oblivious to the onlookers, doin' his bear things - ripping open dead logs and lapping up the tasty bugs below.

The sun was setting, causing slow shutter speeds and unfortunately blurring most of my pictures (Always, always check the images you are capturing to see the results!! Oops.), but the setting sun also allowed for this nice silhouette.

7/19/2011
We opted to stay the night at Buckeye Flat, a developed campsite, just on the edge of the National Park. We always prefer free camping, but there isn't national forest (free camping) on this side of the park, just city. LAME. The campground was very nearly full; we took the penultimate site available. The camping was buggy and busy, but we enjoyed the swim we took the next morning. The park host directed us to this beautiful pool that I imagine gets crazy busy later in the day, but was deserted at 11am.

Jenn goes swimming (it was cold!).

Robert also enjoyed a swim.

Eventually, we both got into the water and it was wonderful, but it took a lot of blustering to take the plunge. Here I swam up to the waterfall. Robert's plan was to make laps - shallow dive from the left of the pool to the right and quickly scurry out of the water. After he completed this process about 4 times, he was passably clean - but his cool points paled in comparison to those I earned from my extended swim! 

 The rest of the day we spent in the car, driving to the coast. We needed camping, but camping on the CA coast in the summer is typically either full or very expensive. We completely lucked out by finding a National Forest access road near a developed campsite and finding a nice secluded spot for ourselves - free! We only needed the intrepidity to take a random, steep and eventually quite rough road out into the middle of nowhere. We rewarded ourselves handsomely with a fire, several Cuba Libres and stir-fry.

It was fairly dark by the time we pulled our chairs over to watch the sun set, but with a tripod anything is possible. Poor Robert had to endure several long exposures and because of his unwavering cooperation, I am choosing to post this one - the half-grin, clown face.

Tit for tat. I retaliated with complete cooperation when Robert tried to take my picture...and grudgingly am posting the results.

The sun was a much better subject. We are camped above the cloud line and the sun has just sunk below the clouds.