This Thursday was to be a hectic day. We had a lot of ground to cover on our way to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. We work up early and skipped breakfast before packing up and shipping out.
We drove down to the Mariposa Grove, an area in Yosemite where there were some giant Sequoia trees. The two main attractions there are the Fallen Monarch and the Grizzly Giant.
The Fallen Monarch is a huge tree that fell a long time ago. There is a “famous picture” of a cavalry brigade that climbed on the tree. I put “famous” in quotes because I never heard of it before I went there. The Grizzly Giant is a huge Sequoia with crazy branches coming out of it making it look almost scary. One of the branches was 6 feet in diameter!
On the way out of the park we stopped at a viewpoint where we saw Half Dome, the 3 Brothers, and El Capitan all in one place.
We drove east towards Fresno and passed through some vineyards (which may have been growing grapes for raisins) and orange groves. On the way up the mountain to the parks, we saw 8 or 9 Fresno Police Dept cars going the other way. Maybe they were having a picnic.
By the entrance of the park was Grant Grove, where saw some amazing Sequoias. Some of them had diameters up to 40 feet, like the General Lee tree (all older trees were named after generals). By the parking lot are the twin sisters, two trees that share a trunk.
We took a small trail, where we passed Sequoia National Park’s version of the Fallen Monarch. This tree had also fallen but it was hollowed out inside, probably even before it fell. In the olden days, visitors would have food and drink right inside the tree. That was pretty neat.
There was a lot of information about Sequoias. They live to be extremely old. Their bark is resistant to fire, which is why a lot of them have fire scars but are still standing. They usually fall uphill because of kindling that accumulates on their uphill side tends to burn hottest, and then during heavy wind or snow conditions they can’t bear the weight. Sequoias are not logged because their wood is very fragile and does not lend itself to construction. When they fall, they break into many pieces.
We stayed at Dorst Creek campground that night. When we got there the ranger was out, so I checked a chalkboard with site assignments. I misread the site number as 87, and when we got there someone was in our site.
We found the ranger roaming around the campground and asked for help. After driving by and seeing people there, we went back to the entrance and another ranger who was there said that the site number was actually 81.
The ranger tried to help us by giving us a new site that he said was nicer and more secluded. Well, it was secluded all right. It was a walk-in site, which means we had to take all of our stuff up a hill about 50 feet. And there were no other sites near it. Since it would be a pain in the ass to haul our gear up there, and Theresa was afraid of the bears (a sign at the entrance read “Extremely Active Bear Area”), we decided to take our original assignment site 81 instead.
After dinner, while we were sitting by the fire, we heard some commotion in the campsite below us. A ranger walked by and T heard him say into his walkie talkie “I’m chasing her.” There was much more noise from below. People were yelling and banging their pots and pans to scare the bear. Theresa was freaked out but I hoped the bear would come by us.