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Published: October 2nd 2013
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Having “done” Yosemite National Park our next stop was intended to be Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. But logistic planning five months ago had us reserving RV camping in Visalia, CA. This city is in the middle of the San Joaquin valley – the heart of California agriculture. The camping spot was clean and comfortable – like all KOA camps but heat and haze had us yearning for the alpine. Next day we climbed 4000 feet to Kings and Sequoia Park for two nights of cool mountain air at 7,000+ feet elevation.
In Kings Canyon Park we drove most of the way on the same-way-in-and-out Kings Canyon winding road, stopping short of the end because it was getting late. Richard admired the variety of geological formations in the canyon walls and Kayla had the camera out at every view point. That evening we walked from our camp to visit
General Grant – the 4
th largest tree in the world. Evening sun made for good photography but the giant Sequoia trees are difficult to describe – better to look at the pictures.
Next day we drove 30 miles on winding mountain road to visit
General Sherman – the largest
tree in the world. The setting for this tree has been prepared by park planners to provide a tasteful and majestic approach. That helps the 1 million annual visitors get in the proper zone for seeing such a beautiful tree. The parking lot is ½ mile away and a winding descending “trail” leads to the tree. It is paved and fenced and included cut granite steps. The tree is in a hollow surrounded by a tasteful cedar zigzag fence. We joined over a hundred others meeting the General. Richard sat and admired Sherman for half an hour while Kayla took pictures. In the same grove are many other giant Sequoias - much smaller than Sherman but by comparison to the pines and firs growing side by side their size is still huge.
We saw a black bear munching grass in a lovely meadow surrounded by giant Sequoias and witnessed two park rangers trying to scare it away from the hundreds of people walking trails and gawking from cars. The rangers had bear mace on their belts but used a rifle with blanks to move Smokey along.
That evening included another law enforcement incident. Our canvas camping chairs, left
to mark occupancy of our camp spot, were gone when we got back from visiting General Sherman. Kayla talked to the park custodian and soon two park rangers complete with side arms arrived to get “particulars” of the crime. We described them as one blue and one green standard folding camp chairs bought from Canadian Tire (meaning Walmart to these Rangers) and when they had our name, address and phone number they left in their SUV to cruise the camp ground. We thought it would be a fat chance to see those chairs again. Surely they were long gone. Unbelievable but within 30 minutes they were back with our chairs. Apparently some other campers saw the chairs left behind as an opportunity to add to their own camping accoutrements. No charges were laid and we thanked these law enforcement folk for a job well done.
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