National Park Count: 35,36 (General Sherman pictured above)
Hey there Adventurers! Hot on the heels of the Juneau trip, the Sidekick and I embarked on another adventure – this time to California with that fancy Southwest companion pass and free flights! This was a two event trip: a couple national parks before catching an AVP Volleyball Tournament in Hermosa Beach, outside L.A. This will be the national park component and before I begin, an important lingo clarification, the two parks, while “separate,” are actually connected and administered as one park which is referred to as Seki (but still counts as two parks!)
First, I have to say that we were EXCEEDINGLY blessed with circumstances. Earlier this year California experienced some really bad weather which wreaked havoc on Central California. In the Seki area, the roads in the parks were greatly damaged, and the parks were mainly closed up to July 1st. We had booked our lodgings in such a way that the road through Sequoia being closed would have posed a huge problem. But, around the beginning of June, the park anticipated a July 1st opening and thank GOODNESS that is what happened as we got there on July 4th! It wasn’t all perfect news, though, as the road through Kings Canyon only went so far and then is closed the rest of the way, at least for the rest of 2023. Additionally, some sections of Sequoia, including some caves are also closed for the year. A bummer there, to be sure, but it ended up ok!
We flew in Fresno (cool little airport), grabbed the rental car and headed for Kings Canyon! I was not familiar with this area at all and was quite surprised at the large elevation change. Fresno sits at about 300 feet. The entrance to Kings Canyon is only about 50 miles away and sits around 5 to 6,000 feet of elevation, so it was a fun drive! We booked our first night just outside the park at a place called Gena’s Sierra Inn. The price is good per night and it’s close to the park. Lodging is not readily available in the area, and I guess you get what you pay for at 120 a night. I am going to give a rare negative review here, which I really do not like to do. The room was very small. We knew that going in. The bed situation was a bed on the ground with a lofted bed perpendicular above. The being said the lofted bed was very, VERY rickety and the decision to share the ground bed was made. Also, the room was literally not large enough to accommodate our luggage without putting them up on that lofted bed anyway. That was not a huge deal. What was – the AC had to be plugged in when we arrived and then after going out to explore a bit and grabbing dinner at the lodge restaurant, we came back to a hot room with the power out! Did I mention it was like 100 degrees outside? It was just our room – the ac tripped the breaker for the room. Anyway, the owner literally took us into the deep dark recesses of the motel and showed us which breakers to reset if it happened again over night….so that might be a consideration at Gena’s! There was also some incident in the restaurant. We were enjoying our food and the restaurant apparently decided to close randomly while we were there and wouldn’t let others in. Then about 2 hours laters, they apparently reopened randomly? Pretty bizarre. I guess pack some food in case the restaurant part of the location is not open if you stay there!
Thankfully, the night at Gena’s passed relatively event free once the room cooled off. The next morning was up and at ’em, heading into Kings Canyon. Seki sits firmly inside Sequoia National Forest, so Kings Canyon has its share of sequoias as well! In fact, one of the big attractions in the park, at least the part that is open right now, is the General Grant tree. It’s really hard to describe how huge these trees are. Pictures cannot do justice to the size of the giant sequoia; and the other trees in the forest are quite large as well. The sequoias are also very old! The lifespan of a sequoia can be 3 millenia! Sequoias are not the tallest trees, nor are they the widest, and they are also not the oldest either. That being said they are the most massive tree, and potentially, most massive living organism, on the planet, by volume. To add the trees feel weird. They are kinda spongey, I guess would be the best word to describe it. These trees coexist with wildfires and the nature of their bark does a great job of protecting them. That being said, there have been a lot of intense wildfires in just the last decade which have taken their tolld on the trees. Anyway, the stats on General Grant are impressive! It is about 1600 years old, 107 feet in circumference at the base (!!) and 267 feet tall! At a volume of 46,600 cubic feet it is the second largest tree in the world and is about 1500 years old! The top of the tree is apparently no longer growing, but it still adds about an entire tree’s worth of wood every year. In addition, General Grant is also referred to as the Nation’s Christmas Tree.
After checking out General Grant and its grove of massive trees, we proceeded further into the park. There is a neat felled sequoia that is hollowed out, giving some fun photo opportunities. At some point around the early 1900s a group of people actually made a home of sorts inside this large tree trunk. It is worth noting that the next section of the park we explored leads to the section of the park that is closed for the year and also goes through a part of the park that was hit really hard by all the recent wildfires. The landscape at the start of the drive is very scarred from those fires before moving back into a more green area. Despite the road being closed further down, we decided to press on and I am glad we did! You might have noticed this park is called King’s Canyon. You might also notice I have not used that word since the top. Well, there is a large canyon here and this is the part of the park where it can be seen! The main road is actually what you want to use to access the canyon floor, but unfortunately, it’s closed! BUMMER. However, right where the road is closed there is an exit to a side road that goes to Hume Lake. We had some snacks and beverages at the lake and just took in the scenery for a bit. The great thing about Hume Lake Road is that it affords some great views of the canyon itself from up high, so it was a worthwhile trip coming this way despite the main road being closed.
After exploring that area of Kings Canyon we drove the recently re-opened General’s Highway down through Sequoia National Park. Our hotel for the next 2 nights was in Three Rivers, located at the entrance in the south end of Sequoia. Had that road not opened in time for our trip it would have been a loooong detour from Kings Canyon to Three Rivers. Thankfully, luck was on our side with the road and we managed to snag some good recon while taking in the scenic drive and large trees south through the park. These two nights we stayed at the MUCH better Gateway Lodge and Restaurant. The hotel was great! The restaurant was about as good as one can get out in the middle of nowhere, but had a nice bar staff and a killer location on the banks of the Kaweah River, which was raging through at this time.
The next day we started out our morning exploring Moro Rock, one of the big draws in Seki. This is a huge rock formation that sits at a pretty high spot in the park. There is a small parking lot right at the start of the climb but you better get there early for a spot! The climb up is about 350 steps with about a 275 feet gain and the top of the rock sits at about 6725′ elevation. This is well above the surrounding landscape, giving beautiful views of the nearby sequoia groves, the valleys below, and the Great Western Divide. This is a pretty cool spot to take in some great views and some fresh air!
Next up it was back to some trees and some hiking! In the same area where Moro Rock is you can find a fallen sequoia that you can drive through! Much to the chagrin of the Sidekick, I insisted on doing it several times! Hey, it’s not every day you get to drive through a tree! Anyway, in this same nook was also a nice pleasant hike through the woods in Crescent Meadow. This was a nice spot to get in some wildflower views, and there was also a deer friend we met, and there was a bear (that we luckily did not meet, nor did the deer, I think). In general, this is a nice low intensity walk and pretty accessible.
Next up was a visit to the king of the trees: General Sherman. This is the largest known living thing on the planet! To be fair the tree is slightly smaller around the base, but is slightly taller that General Grant, but the tree is thicker throughout making it about 12 percent bigger, by volume – 52,500 cubic feet, than General Grant. General Sherman stands just shy of 275 feet tall, 103 feet in circumference at the base, and adds the equivalent wood of a 60 foot tree every year! The tree is around 2500 years old and is located in the Giant Forest, a large section of the forest filled with these behemoths. The area requires a shuttle to reach, unless you are handicapped and can utilize a small parking area, and most of the area is paved. A peaceful stroll on Big Trees Trail nearby concluded our adventure to Seki and that’s two more national parks!
Overall Impressions: Despite many parts of Seki being inaccessible in 2023, and some intense wildfire scars, I was quite impressed! Seeing these massive and beautiful trees in person is a real delight and is probably one of the more interesting things I have seen! I think I would come back for a second visit, if just to see more of Kings Canyon and to (hopefully) see a more recovered forest.
The Adventurer’s Rating: 5 Arrowheads!
The Parks Adventurer 