Sequoia National Park

Humungous tree
see all photos »

The car hire we picked up in SF was $300 dollars cheaper than one for a similar period in Canada and although it’s slightly smaller the saving is well worth it even though we’ve already encountered some problems, more later.

The journey to Sequoia took over 5 hours and was nowhere near as spectacular as driving in the Rockies so the time dragged on a bit, the boys though never tired of comparing the spoils from their trick-or-treating exploits (“I’ve got eight Milk Duds”, “Well I’ve got ten” - even though none of us have any idea what a Milk Dud is). For the last hour however we left the flat plains, turned east and into a pleasant area dominated by orange and apple groves very similar to some areas of Spain we are familiar with. From here a road that seemed to wind ever upwards took us from sea level to nearly 7500ft very quickly (causing, we were to find out later, bags of crisps and sweets to balloon and pop with the change in pressure) into the forests of Sequoia. The first inkling we had of the size of the famous trees here was a few miles before we arrived at our lodge when I caught sight of one of the Giant Sequoias through a gap in the pines. “Jesus, did you see that tree?” I said and screeched into the next car park to explore. And following a short trail we came across it, the trunk about 10ft across, the bark red and spongy and about 150th tall it was the largest tree we had ever seen by a long, long way. We guessed it was about 700 years old, but later found out it was over 1,200! Following the trail in warm sunshine we were sad to find that all the other giants had fallen to the lumberjacks axe many years before, but their remains were still impressive. It was a marvelous afternoon.

Walking in the shadows of giants

BACK: General Sherman FRONT (look closely): Archie, Stan, Sam
see all photos »

Bright and early the next morning we took a 2 mile circuit of the Giant Forest, just a few miles from the lodge. The sign at the top proclaims General Sherman to be the largest tree on earth but having seen what we had the previous day we were prepared to find little different here. Such an incredible sight it was though, that as soon as I saw it I had to stifle a laugh. It was magnificently ridiculous. The pictures we took don’t nearly do it justice, standing at the bottom, staring up at it branches, was almost a religious experience. 40ft wide, 275ft tall and 2,200 years old it made yesterday’s ‘sapling’ pale into insignificance. And it was just the beginning, over the next two miles there must have been fifty such beasts some standing alone some in tight groups, all beyond the powers of my small vocabulary to describe. Just go there, I promise you will thank me if you do. For me, the highlight of our trip so far.

We're gonna need a bigger axe!
see all photos »

Then back into the car fro the trip to Death Valley, just 100 or so miles from Sequoia, or so I thought when I organised the itinerary for this leg of the trip. Looking at the map a day or so ago though I found with dismay that no road completely crosses Sequoia and on to Death Valley, and so a detour had to be taken to the south and back up. A detour of an extra 260 miles. After an hour we were well on our way and despite roadworks had covered 8 of the 360 mile total. From here things sped up, the only distractions being the car’s interior lights which refused to turn off, and the engine warning light which popped on with a cheery ‘ding’ another half an hour further on. Still we made it eventually to our Motel in Standpipe Wells just as the sun spectacularly set over the mountains turning everything a wonderful pink, and after a quick call to Dollar car rentals to arrange to exchange the piece of crap they had palmed off on me, we turned in for the night looking forward to Death Valley tomorrow.