Day 24 (7/22) (Lin) This morning we filled our bellies with the healthiest breakfast known to humankind: Nutella buns. Indescribably gooey and unhealthy. (Thanks, Kristina!) After saying our goodbyes, we headed north through the Central Valley of California and then up into the Sierra Nevada mountain range to Sequoia National Park (which is right beside King’s Canyon National Park, but we didn’t have time to see it). This was our second time driving through the Central Valley on this trip, and we enjoyed seeing (and tasting!) first hand the fruit basket of the U.S. Miles and miles of fruit, almond, and olive trees, the rich greenness standing out in stark relief with the bleached yellow grasses that naturally grow in the valley.
At the lowest point in the valley we were at 450 feet above sea level; Sequoia is 7,000 feet above sea level, so we had quite a climb into the Sierras. After entering the park, we climbed steadily and steeply for an hour on what was likely the curviest road with the sharpest hairpin turns we’ve seen yet (which is saying something, given everywhere we’ve been so far). Jo was driving, as usual, which was good, because I inexplicably was virtually incapacitated with nausea and vertigo. Very unusual for me (Nutella for breakfast, perhaps? Or altitude illness, but I’ve never had it before..), but thankfully it got better once we were walking around the big trees. The temps dropped 10-15 degrees with the higher altitude.
As we reached the highlands, we started seeing huge sequoia trees all over. Our first stop was the General Sherman Tree, which is the largest tree by volume in the world: 275 feet high and 109 feet in circumference (~36 feet wide). We quickly learned the difference between sequoias and redwoods: the former are found inland and are fatter; redwoods are found on the coast and are slightly taller and skinnier.
Although the Sherman Tree was huge and amazing, our favorite section was the Tall Trees Trail, a .6 mile trail around a large meadow. It is really hard to capture the hugeness and grandeur of these trees, and how small you feel standing at the gigantic bases of them. We all felt like we were under their spell: so tall and silent, and yet living witnesses to between 2,000 and 3,000 years of history. Totally cool. We also enjoyed seeing the huge root systems of fallen sequoia trees — some of them 20-30 feet high. One of them on the Tall Trees Trail was hollowed out enough that we all could crawl through the trunk a ways.
Our final stop in the park was a tunnel carved out of a fallen sequoia tree that we could drive through. (Apparently parks stopped allowing people to drive through living trees a while back, so this is the next best option.) After that, it was a repeat of the harrowing one hour drive back down into the valley – super beautiful in the late afternoon light, but still a little nuts. Signs suggested using lower gears to save the brakes (which we have been doing in other locations, too — a bit funny for a minivan somehow!).
We drove two hours south of Sequoia to Bakersfield, CA, to put us in a better position to reach Death Valley and Las Vegas in good time tomorrow. Bring on the heat!
(You can click on individual photos to see them larger or as a slide show.)
Fisher Family Travels 