Sequoia National Park

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Leaving Yosemite, it should have been a fairly short 3 hour drive to King’s Canyon National Park, through which we planned to drive to get to Sequoia. Once we left Fresno however, it became obvious that it might take longer than we thought as we started to see signs informing us that access to King’s Canyon was shut due to wildfires. Stupidly, we decided to carry on – surely there would be a diversion, wouldn’t there? As it was, we ended up having to go quite the scenic route to get to Sequoia via its South entrance… but we made it, eventually. Driving into the national park, the road wound dramatically upwards and the trees were getting bigger, more colourful and more impressive. The sighting of a baby bear distracted me from my car sickness. He was adorable! Altogether, we would see him 4 times during our stay, plodding around, he looked like a fluffy little teddy bear… obviously we named him Barney (Tom’s choice, I wanted Basil… but whatever).



So we made it to our campsite and headed off for a shower. Now, don’t judge us but it had been three days since the last one as there weren’t any in the North section of Yosemite, so we were quite excited. After wandering around, we asked a Park employee, only to be told that the showers had been switched off because of the drought – and there weren’t any other showers in the whole park! We were gutted.



However, Sequoia soon improved our mood as it really is an impressive place. We took a walk around the General Sherman trail, where you can see the biggest tree in the world – a whopping 11 metres in diameter! We saw lots of other amazing ones as well, the majority had been struck by lightning which gives them enormous holes that you can stand in… the trees grow around the scars and many live for up to 3000 years – it was really interesting!



The next day we took a walk up to Moro Rock, where there were some brilliant views out into the Sierra Nevada, and then along to Crescent Meadow, where we walked through another grove of sequoias to a cabin built in to a log, big enough to stand in. It had a bed and everything! After lunch we did a lovely walk from our campsite to Topokah Falls. The falls themselves were a bit pathetic due to the drought, but the main thing was that we managed something that passed for a shower! Followed by an afternoon lazing around on the rocks to dry off, which was very relaxing. We pledged to do nothing more often, as we seem to be permanently rushing from one place to the next! In the evening, we decided to walk back up to the rock to see the sunset, which was pretty spectacular. We also found out that King’s Canyon was completely shut, at least for the next few days if not longer, so were forced to take that off the itinerary!



We have now made it to El Cerrito, our AirBnB home for the next three days, where there’s a proper shower and views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the balcony. Tomorrow we’re off to see the sights of San Francisco, can’t wait!

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