The Biggest Living Thing?

North America » United States » California » Bakersfield
October 23rd 2006

Published: October 28th 2006

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After our adventures in finding accommodation last night, we have quite a way to back-track… But the day dawns (well it wasn’t exactly dawn when we got started) with a blue sky and hardly a cloud to be found, so off we go - our destination the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks…

Statistics

Starting Destination: Vidalia, California
Ending Destination: Bakersfield, California
Ending Destination GPS: N: 35° 24.951’ W: 119° 03.577’ Elev: 447’
Miles Driven: 290
Distance Hiked: 1.5 miles
Number of Times crossed an elevation of 4000 feet: 8

Backtracking

We re-traced our path of last night, seeing what we could before only smell… the dairy, the citrus trees, the alfalfa fields, olive trees and several other types of “trees” that we couldn’t identify. But we couldn’t see some of the things that had been so obvious the night before, particularly the lighted antenna towers! The valley floor seems so flat that it is kind of a shock to have the edge of the Sierra Nevada’s just “appear.” So we left the flat valley behind and started the first of many climbs for the day, wondering as we did, why the fence line we were following had a well-worn path adjacent to the fence? At the top of the road we re-joined highway 180 interested to find out if there was more to Squaw Valley in the day light… unfortunately not, we saw little to suggest that the 2,691 people that live in the town actually do so. And with that we were still confused about the Olympics… until later when Google came to our rescue - there is an unincorporated ski resort near Lake Tahoe that is also called Squaw Valley, this is where the Olympics were held!…

Kings Canyon

After the puzzle of Squaw Valley we continued to follow the road as it wound up into the Sierra’s, occasionally looking over our shoulders back to the valley, commenting on how hazy it was and wondering about all the air pollution. On our way up we encountered a group of cyclists making excellent progress with the climb, Carl looked enviously at more than one of them and commented that he wished his legs would ‘go-round’ that fast when he was climbing. With the cyclists in mind we had to smile when we saw the following sign - obviously designed for motorists: Save the Engine, Turn off Air-Conditioning; which when paired with the several water stops signposted “Do not Drink this Water, for Radiators Only,” and the number of times we had to yawn to equalize pressure in our ears underscored just how difficult the climb must be… After commenting just how little accommodation there was along this road we made it to the entrance of the park, or what used to be the entrance - the old sign is covered with a new warning sign, the entrance station had been moved to protect the National Park employees and any visitors waiting to enter the park from a tree - a very large and very hollow sequoia - that threatened to fall…

After a quick stop at the visitors’ center we had a dilemma to solve, what to see with limited time in the park? We both wanted to see Kings Canyon, but it was a 30 mile trip out and back and we didn’t know the condition of the roads… So we decided that we would bypass most of the big trees and budget an hour for traveling out to Kings Canyon and an hour back! So off we set, on one of the most challenging and scenically spectacular drives of this trip - the road winds its way steeply down towards the canyon hugging the sides of the mountains… There aren’t many switch backs so in places it is pretty much straight down!! But the view - there are very few trees so you can see everything, which is almost too much in places!! The various valleys, Mount Whitney in the distance and all the peaks in between; and then the South Fork of the Kings River as you drive along the banks… It is probably needless to say, but we spent an hour getting only about two thirds of the way into the canyon - at that point, neither of us was willing to turn around, we just had to follow the road…

What we saw along the way and a “Brown Blob” Update

The views just fascinated both of us… we would stop the truck just to take a picture of another “set of rocks,” we actually stopped in the same place twice because the view looked different with different lighting!! We stopped at two of the waterfalls - Grizzly Falls and the Roaring River Falls - with Carl commenting that these were nicer than the ones in Yosemite… they fit within his camera lens! But passed up on exploring the “Roads End,” “Knapp’s Cabin,” or the Boyden Cavern - not only because of our time constraints, but because of the flying bugs… they were everywhere, and boy were they persistent!!

In end it was all about being in the right place at the right time… we were innocently driving along the road when a black bear just ambled across the road in front of us. His paw prints were wet and he was dripping water, so we were sure he had just crossed the stream. By this point in time, Carl and Maria have the “camera lens change-out procedure” down pat, so Carl quickly stopped the truck and managed to get a few photos as the Bear calmly continued on his way patiently ignoring us - a good sign, meaning that he was truly wild. After all these stops we had to be disciplined in driving back to the main road; however, this was not accomplished any faster than the trip in… We did some rough calculations regarding grade: It took us 2.4 miles to travel between 5,000 and 6,000 (approximately 8%!g(MISSING)rade) and Carl swears that the section between 4,000 and 5,000 feet was steeper!!

Off to see the tree…

Back on the main road, our next destination was Sequoia National Park, the Giant Forrest and in particular the General Sherman Tree. We were running out of sunlight, so we only made one stop along the way - to view a grove of Sequoia’s where there were several twin and triplet trees. We also had another factor to add into the mix - the National Park Service is working on the road from the South Entrance and they are only letting vehicles pass once every hour - on the hour… so we wanted to make sure we didn’t have a 59 minute wait!! In the end, it didn’t matter… The road through the park was initially constructed as a wagon path and it doesn’t seem like many changes have been made to the road grade since that time! Thus we slowly made our way though the park finding it hard to exceed the 35 mph speed limit! To accomplish this mission we were directed towards the New General Sherman Tree Parking Lot - from there it was a ½ mile trek with a 212 foot drop in elevation to “see the tree.” The suggested walking time was 15 minutes down and 30 minutes back up - we didn’t have that much time so we power walked the whole way. But the “sweat” was worth it - the size of the tree is truly impressive, we couldn’t stand next to the tree so the size comparison in the picture left is a little distorted, but we could stand near one of the branches that had fallen down… Carl seems to have shrunk in the picture left!!

Getting down the Mountain!

Ok, by this time we had totally blown our time budget… so all that was left was to get as far as we could… This was easier said than done - the road out of the park to the South is one of the most challenging we have encountered, even more so than the road into Kings Canyon… There are many tight switch backs, the road is narrow and steep, in one place the road splits to fit vehicles between four giant Sequoias, and in the places where it hasn’t been upgraded things could get a little bouncy!! The road rivaled the degree of challenge presented by the Mattole Road, but not quite - look for a “top ten” list in future blogs… The good thing about being late was that we only had to wait about 5 minutes for the stop light at the one-way section before we were on our way, also we got some really nice sunset aided photos!! But it did mean that we were late getting to a hotel for the night, and that we had to have fast food for dinner again!!

Carl’s Travel Trivia

Yesterday’s Answer: The shortest word containing all five vowels exactly once is the six-letter EUNOIA. Never heard of it? It is defined as "alertness of mind and will"
Today’s Question: What is the estimated weight of the trunk of the world’s largest tree?

The Biggest Living Thing?