Sequoia and Kings Canyon

April 28, 2016

Left Groveland today and heading for Kaweah Park Resort in Three Rivers, CA; just outside of Sequoia National Park. It took us about 4 hours to make the drive. The first half was through curvy mountain roads…again. The park is beautiful and as the town name implies, there are three rivers that meet together right in the campground. The Kaweah River and, I believe, its North and South Forks. The rivers are running high so the sound of rushing water can be heard throughout the park. We walked around the campground and the length of the river within the park. They have a couple of horses in the park who wanted our attention, so we went over and said hi to them. 

The curvy mountain roads that took us to our campground

Our campground is in Three Rivers, CA...this is where the three rivers meet.

We loved this campground, but its a little off the beaten path 

unless you're visiting the National Parks

We didn't know they had horses at the campground until we heard this guy 

doing everything to get us to come over and say hi.

Grilled some chicken and since they don’t offer fire pits in our section of the campground, we built a small fire in our little Weber grill and enjoyed the night sky.

 Dave loves our little Weber Grill fire pit!

April 29, 2016

Got up early to head to Sequoia National Park. The entrance to the park is only about 10 minutes from our campground. It was a beautiful day (sunny and 70’s) in Three Bridges, but a little overcast and cold (in the low 50’s) in the mountains. 

Entrance to the park

View of the snow covered Sierra mountains.

Weather board at the Visitor's Center

We stopped in at the Foothills Visitors Center to get maps and some advice on what to see and do. We drove the twisty turning scenic (sometimes terrifying) road to the Giant Forest Museum to learn about the Sequoias and get a trail map. We started our visit to the Giant Forest with the Beetle Rock trail which gave us nice views of the area. 

 Its pretty cold up here in the mountains - Beetle Rock

Then we walked the Big Trees trail (1 mile). The trees make you feel like you’re in a fantasy land…something you’d see in a movie.

Trees along Big Tree Trail

Feeling small among the big trees

We got back in the car to go to the Wolverton picnic area to eat lunch (elevation 7,200 ft) in the picnic area. It was so cold there, we ate our lunch very quickly!

A snowy lunch stop

Then drove to the Sherman Tree parking area to view the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world.

Wendy standing in front of the General Sherman Tree

From there, we took the Congress Trail, a two-mile loop that highlights the other largest trees in the park, The President Tree, and the House and Senate Trees. 

 Wendy in the Senate

 Dave in the House

The President

The hike back up to the car was a little challenging at the high altitude

Then we headed to Moro Rock. Along the way we stopped at Auto Log and Tunnel Log.

 Can't believe they used to drive on this log...I'm sure it was in better shape then.

Dave driving through the tunnel log

Moro Rock is a granite dome rock formation located at the center of the park that you can climb via a stairway (400 steps) to the top. The 300 foot ascent takes you to 6,725 feet, about 4,000 feet above the canyon floor. From the top you can look down on the tops of the giant sequoias. Wendy got about ¾ of the way up and enjoyed the view from there. Dave climbed all the way to the top and got some good photos of the area.

 The beginning of the Moro Rock Trail

 Halfway up

 Decided to stay at this landing...

...after reading this sign at the mid-point

Dave kept going to the top

The top!!

Pretty views at the top

View of the winding roads through Sequioa NP

After the hike, we started the long drive back to the campground from the top of the mountain. We stopped several times along the way to get photos of the sun setting on the mountains.

Sequoia National Park is beautiful…and again, as with Yosemite, our photos don’t do it justice.

Sun setting on Moro Rock on our drive back to the campground

April 30, 2016

Had a leisurely early morning and then got on Lake Kaweah (a local reservoir a couple of miles downstream from our campground) at around 11:30 to do some kayaking. It’s supposed to be in the 70’s today so we figured we’d like to experience some warm weather for a change. 

Lake Kaweah

It was a little windy when we first headed out, but it calmed down after a couple of hours

We packed lunch so we could beach the kayaks and just hang out on the shore somewhere. There wasn’t a lot of boat traffic when we first got on the lake…it started out a little windy, but after lunch at around 1:30 the wind died and the boat traffic picked up a bit. 

Stopped here for lunch

We pretty much covered most of the three square mile lake

We were really excited to see an immature bald eagle soar over our heads. So cool! Couldn’t believe how big he was, but it takes four years to reach adult plummage. By the time we got our phones out to take pics, he was a little further away. 

Immature bald eagle soaring overhead

Another cool thing that happened…a small high wing four-seater plane (looked like an Alaska bush plane) with big fat wheels flew low and fast right through the canyon. Still couldn’t get our cameras out fast enough to catch a pic, but we were both kind of watching to make sure it wasn’t going to crash into one of the mountains that he was barely skimming over. We took the kayaks out at around 4 and went back to the campground to grill steaks for dinner.

May 1, 2016

We left for Kings Canyon today at around 9:30. It was a long drive (a little over an hour) along curvy rural roads. Passed a lot of ranches along the way. Amazingly people live up here in the mountains. I wouldn’t want to navigate these roads with snow and ice on them. Our first stop was the Visitor Center where we asked one of the rangers for info and maps. With our maps in hand, we drove to Panoramic Point overlook which is a 7,520-foot overlook of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Panoramic Overlook

Then we headed to General Grant Grove where we saw the General Grant tree; the second-largest tree in the world. 

Second largest tree in the world - known as the Nation's Christmas tree

We stopped for lunch at Columbine Picnic area and then took our long scenic drive on the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway to the bottom of the canyon. There were sooo many opportunities to take pictures and it was a beautiful (sometimes scary) drive down to the canyon floor. The wild flowers were in full bloom! 

 We're back in snow again

 Wildflowers in bloom on the ride down to the canyon floor

One of our stops was at Grizzly Falls. The 75-foot waterfall was loud and forceful and at its peak beauty due to the spring runoff. We could hear it before we even got out of the car.

Grizzly Falls

Our destination for hiking was the River Trail to Zumwalt Meadow Trail; a five-mile loop. The trail began right next to the Roaring River Falls, which was really roaring! 

Roaring River Falls was really roaring!

The River Trail was okay…further from the river than we had expected, but pretty. 

The River Trail wasn't always next to the river

The Zumwalt Meadow Trail was gorgeous. It started at a suspension bridge over the South Fork of the Kings River. Up canyon, beyond the river and meadow, was Glacier Monument that rises to a height of 11,165 feet. The trail climbed onto the talus slope over the meadow. The rocky trail, similar to many High Sierra trails, rose high enough for great views of the meadow, river, and cliffs. Then the trail looped around the meadow, skirting the river back to the bridge. 

 Suspension Bridge

Hiking through the talus slope along the trail.

The meadow with Glacier Monument in the background was beautiful!

The trail went along the river for a little bit

Wishing he had his kayak...or a fishing pole!

The sun was in and out during our hike and toward the end it started to drizzle. Our reward for the rain was a gorgeous rainbow with the most brilliant colors either of us has ever seen in a rainbow!

 After the rain

Beauty!

After taking a million pictures of the rainbow, we drove to Roads End and prepared for the long ride back to our campground. Of course, we stopped along the way to get some sunset pictures of the canyon. Got back to the campground at 9:30. 

 The end of the road

Canyon from the bottom

 Canyon from the top

That's all folks!

We're a bit behind on keeping up with the blog so we're going to try to catch up over the next few days. After visiting national parks in California and Utah, we're in New Mexico now.