Visiting High Sierra

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Finally Marek was able to leave everything behind and go on vacation. We took our little boat and went where is green, cool and not too far, to Sierra (officially called Sierra Nevada). It is 6 hours of driving from our home (with the boat in tow 8). Sierra is about 350 miles long and 80-40 miles wide, having picturesque alpine lakes, deep canyons, numerous cascade waterfalls, little glaciers, high summits to conquer (with Mt. Whitney including) and many more, is a playground to people who like hiking, fishing, rock climbing and any other adventures. It has Lassen National Park, Yosemity N.P., Kings Canyon N.P. and Sequoia N.P. which says a lot about uniqueness of this area. First we went to Hunington lake to check our boat on the lake. Kids and us had so much fun, the lake with emerald water was beautifull, Marek did not catch any fish but found few mushrooms (we had a king's breakfast: eggs and mushrooms). We took one hike trip to Indian Pools, where part of the hike we decided to take a walk up the stream, jumping from boulder to boulder. It made it more interesting.
Then we changed the place, and went to Sequioia N.P. in Lodgepole Camground. This is one of the best places for families. The campground has a stream, the Park free shuttle stops there, has the little store, restaurant, showers and laudry. Since it is situated in the middle of the park it is close to everywhere and thanks to free shuttle people can leave the car, plan their hikes by being dropped on one stop and picked up on the next. Park also organizes a lot of info meetings with the rangers with many interesing topics. On the top of that many interesting things a sight of wild life is guarateed (including a bear).
First we did the hiking among the giants, and no picture can not show how big those trees are, for me it feels like being in old gothic cathedral with giant columns and the ceiling somewhere up high. The sequioas grow only in the few places in Sierra where the climate is right for this old giants, some of them 3000 years old and some "only" few hundres. Sequioas are resistant to fire and insects, fire also helps to grow new sequioias. We also took a 8 mile walk to Heather Lake up at 9200 feet, there are two more lakes up but we left it for the next time. Kids of course completed the Junior Ranger program and got their badges, Kuba was very proud so was of course mama. We had few close encounters with the bears including mama with the cub on the campground and in the park, have seen many deer and many rainbow troud (no catch).

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