Sequoia/Kings Canyon

Sherman Grove

Park Entrance Fee: $20
Camping Fees: $30
Playing your cedar top acoustic guitar in a grove of cedars under the moon and stars by firelight: priceless

Got back from my trip Monday night. The capsule summary is Seki is a great park (two parks anyway), worthy of a visit for a number of reasons. It's got towering trees that are incredibly ancient, soaring canyons, a beautiful cave system, animals all over the place, and beautiful views at every turn. If you like Yosemite, you'll like Seki.

I left Saturday without much of a plan and I think the trip kind of reflected that. I ended up camping at both ends of the park on successive nights, which I think would have driven anyone traveling with me crazy, had I been traveling with anyone. I kinda regretted it at times. Things kind of got off on a bad foot: I started late, I was tired because preparing for this trip kept me from sleeping much the previous two nights, and my friend Rick ended up not being able to go because he woke up sick on Saturday. Nevertheless, I chomped on some gum (chewing helps keep you awake), cranked up the tunes, and hit the road about 11. The drive there is not super interesting until you get past Fresno on 180. I started getting really excited, though, once I got past the last farmsteads and rising up into the highlands of the park. The temperature started dropping (which was great since it was quite warm in the Central Valley) and was probably in the 60s by the time I got to entrance gate.

I got to my first vista spot with Absurd by Fluke pumping out of the car stereo, which seemed oddly appropriate. Got out of the car to look out at this beautiful valley shrouded in clouds. Felt very pleased with myself and the world in the general.

Got back into the car and made my way into the Sequoia side of the park, not entirely sure where I would stay. There was a surprising amount of snow on the ground at the higher elevations (above around 7000 feet) and consequently there was water in flow everywhere. I stopped at one of the main sequoia viewing spots to take in some of these massive trees.


Sequoia Giganteum (Giant Sequoia) are closely related to the Sequoia Sempervirens (Coastal Redwood) that we have here in places like Big Basin and Muir Woods. Giant Sequoia tend not to be as tall, but are wider than the Coastal Redwood. By volume, they are the largest living things on earth (according to many exhibits I went through).

My next stop was the Lodgepole visitor center, since it was getting on in the afternoon and I was starting to worry about getting a campsite. The somewhat curt ranger there informed me that Lodgepole was filling up fast and that the temperature the previous night was 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Brr, that seemed a little colder than I wanted to deal with so I decided to hit some of the lower elevation campsites. So I drove through Giant Forest and down the long, winding road to the Buckeye Flat campsite. Which was hidden at the end of another winding road and was rather crowded together. And full. Damn. So I slowly extricated myself from there and headed towards Potishwa. Which was also full. It was now late afternoon and I noticed that these lower elevation sites were really warm. Not Central Valley warm, but close. So I didn't really want to drive up the serpentine road to Lodgepole again (and I figured they'd probably be full anyway), so I resigned myself to camping in Mineral King, which I hadn't wanted to do since the lowest campsites there were at 6500 feet.

The Mineral King part of the park was added in 1978 after a long struggle between developers and conservationists. Back in the late 19th century people had flocked there because they thought there were rich mineral deposits (silver in particular) there, but eventually they learned that there wasn't really anything of material value there. To get to Mineral King, I had to leave the park boundary and drive through Three Rivers to get back to the park. I figured there was a good chance that the campsites there wouldn't be full because of their elevation. Well, I shouldn't have worried because the other factor working in my favor is that the campsites are on a road that leads to the ass end of nowhere. It's 25 miles from the main gate to the end of the road and it's a windy, twisty road. The views are beautiful, but driving slow. On the plus side, the buckeyes were in bloom and smelled great. As the road started getting narrower and rougher I started wondering about the wisdom of my choice, but you have to see these things through to the end, you know? When the road turned to dirt (ah, the memories of Maine back roads), I started wondering when the road would turn to bones and skulls (Sorry, I have was traumatized by Jacob's Ladder when I was younger.). Finally, around 6pm I wound up at the Atwell Mill campsite, which is nestled in a sequoia grove. It was getting near dark, so I had to rush to get my food stowed away, the tent up, and a fire made. My first attempt at a fire was unsuccessful, but after splitting some of the hot wood (tm), I made my primitive forebears proud by making fire. Made a bit of dinner and crashed around 10.

Slept in the next morning and then tried to figure out where to go and and what to do. I liked the remoteness of the site I was at (my nearest neighbors were probably 200 feet away), but it was nearly an hour drive from the campsite to the main road and there was a lot in the rest of the park that I wanted to see. So, I hit upon the (in retrospect, somewhat insane) plan to head to the other end of the park because I wanted to see Kings Canyon as well. On the way, I'd stop at the Crystal Caves to see the caves, maybe do a quick hike in KC, and then get up early to see Giant Forest and Grant Grove the next day. If you look at the park map (PDF, 1MB) you will see that is a quite aggressive plan, but when you want to see all you can, you do strange things.

So I drove out the windy, twisty road of Mineral King, drove into Three Rivers to get some gas, then up the windy, twisty road to Giant Forest where Crystal Caves are located. You have to hike about half a mile down (and up on the way back) to the cave, but it is totally worth it. The caves are absolutely gorgeous. They are formed because the veins of marble are trapped in beween harder metamorphic rock. Marble is water soluble, so it will dissolve and flow.

The pictures I got there were ok, but I had to use a flash and had the ISO cranked up, so they're kinda grainy. Oh well. All sorts of incredible rock formations inside the cave. There are evidently a 200+ caves in the park, but this is only one they take people on tours in (in order to protect the other caves).

So, once I got out of the caves I headed off to Kings Canyon which I hadn't seen any of as of yet. I had to haul ass to get there because it was nearly five by the time I got out of the caves. I am so glad I went there. Sequoia is pretty enough, but Kings Canyon (formed by the mighty Kings River) is by far the more impressive park visually, IMO. Huge canyons and rock formations as you drive in on route 180.

Got a chance to use my new graduated neutral density filters, which I later discovered can be used for both good or for evil (got a lot of really dark pictures with 3 stops from the filter). I rushed all the way to the end of the

canyon stopping periodically when the urge to take pictures grew too strong. I had to keep moving fast because it was around 7pm at this point and I needed to get a campsite soon. I settled on Cedar Grove because it had a plethora of empty sites. I grabbed one near the road because there were no other campers near me and I wanted to get up early to head back (!) to Giant Forest to get some pictures at Moro Rock at or near sunrise. This time I got my stuff unpacked and the fire made before it was too dark, so I was pretty pleased about that. While my ramen and progresso stew was cooking, I got out my guitar since I had all my stuff ready to go for the morning. It was a really nice evening. The elevation was about 4600 feet so the temperature was quite pleasant. The moon came out and since I was in a fairly open area, I got some stars and moonlight. I swear that some of the strings on my guitar (high e in particular) resonated differently and had a really long sustain in the mountain air. Maybe my cedar top was happy to be back in the company of his brothers. :-)

Got up at 5am, which was not nearly as dark as I had hoped. Broke camp quickly and headed down the road again with It's A Beautiful Day by U2 on the radio feeling very happy indeed. In fact, I briefly had this sensation that some presence (God, Nature, random brain chemistry??) was telling me, "Hey man, the world isn't all bad, see all this around you? Cheer up." The Kings River is a raging torrent right now and it was really cool driving past it and rising slowly above it.

Made it to Moro Rock in about an hour and a half (which is pretty good since the park says it'll take two hours), which shows what you can do if there are no cars on the road. No one was at Moro Rock when I got there, so I enjoyed a short walk to the top (the parking lot is nearly at the top). It was surprisingly warm when I got to the top and the view of the Western Divide very impressive. I took off my long sleeve shirt since there was no one there to be offended by my flabby, white torso. Took some pictures and then just lay at the top for a few minutes, drinking in the sun and air. Eventually some people showed up, so I re-robed and headed out. Since I was in Giant Forest I went to Sherman Grove and checked the General Sherman tree, the largest living creature on earth. It was... large. Had lunch at the Lodgepole visitor center, did a little shopping at the gift shop and headed back to Grant Grove, the only sequoia grove I hadn't visited yet. Saw a bunch more of really large trees (including the Grant Tree). Then I hit the road and headed back to the world.

Overall a satisfying, if somewhat short trip. I would love to go back and see more of Kings Canyon. Also, Mineral King looks like it has a lot of cool trails and would make a good jumping off point for a backpacking trip. I consider this merely a reconnaissance trip and look forward to returning. :-) Whew! That's a lot of words. I guess I had a lot to get out. I took a bunch of pictures, which I hope to get out RSN. Sigh. More developing.