NOV 4, WEDNESDAY: SEQUOIA
NATIONAL PARK
Rain
again overnight, heavy at times as it woke me up a couple times. It is sunny now @ 8 am. No bears in the tree, I checked! We headed up to the Park by 10 am; the road had
lots of curves but nothing serious. We
arrived at the Park entrance, 5 miles away and paid our entrance fee but had to
return a couple miles back as we needed chains even though we were driving a
four-wheel drive. So we did as we had no
choice and returned to the Park 20 minutes later and $60 poorer for the
rental. We began climbing slowly while
following a small creek then we turned into the mountains and we began a steep, tortuous and long climb to
over 6000 feet from 1500 feet. The views
along the way were absolutely a marvel and we kept being reminded of our drives
in the Philippines a few years back. We
finally saw the Sequoia trees AND SNOW. They grow between 5500 to 6500 feet and only
in this park of North America. There
were lots and the road wandered between them, up and down. It was near impossible to drive and sightsee
so we stopped a lot. At one point, the
road split because of the Giants and it made a great place to take
pictures. We stopped of course. We stopped at a museum that was still open
and looked around then went on deeper and higher in the Park. We stopped at the SHERMAN TREE and walked
around. This is the biggest but not the
oldest Sequoia tree in the Park and it was beautiful. There was a nice, well-kept trail to it and
of course lots of other Sequoias. We
took pictures and continues on our adventure.
We stopped at LODGEPOLE VISITOR CENTRE which was closed then at the
WUSACHI LODGE (7300 feet) which was open and we had a cup of coffee here and
walked around a bit. It was cold but
tolerable in my shorts and jacket. Most
of all the side road trips were closed due to the snow and our trip ended at
WUSACHI because the road was closed beyond here due to the recent fires and
unstable side hills and rock slides. Too
bad because we wanted to drive to KINGS CANYON.
Another time I guess!
After
our coffees, we drove back to the Park Entrance and took more pictures. We stopped part way down and had our lunch
that we had packed up. The Jeep was in
second gear in places due to the steepness and length. We got back down safely, stopped to returned
the chains which we didn’t need and went home!
WOW
is all I can say about this day. It was
impressive, inspiring and awesome! We
enjoyed every minutes and miles of this journey.
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