Day 74: Sequoia National Park, CA

We were warned by the Park Ranger that this weekend is one of the park’s busiest of the year. The early bird gets the worm was the take home message, so we took this to heart. We were up bright and early (shocking, I know) in order to score a parking spot at the General Sherman summer lot. Before leaving the campsite, we powered up with a yogurt parfait made with fresh California peaches - amazing.

Our hike to the General Sherman tree - the largest tree on Earth (by weight and volume) - was a success. We arrived before the crowds and were able to spend some time admiring the magnificence of this tree. It is truly huge. The boys stood in its footprint made with an outline of patio stones, which really made its immense size resonate.

We walked the General Sherman trail to get all vantage points and the headed off to hike the Congress trail to see the other amazing trees in this sequoia grove. These trees really show evidence of how many forest fires they have weathered (some up to 80 fires!) Some trees even have their whole middles burnt out and are still alive and growing. Some others succumbed to the flames leaving gigantic burnt trucks still standing.

On our journey, we met a family of yellow bellied marmots who have made the trees’ vast root systems their burrows. We also walked alongside a calm young buck for a while.

We continued along the Alta Trail to Alta Village. This was the best hike of the trip so far, in my opinion. It was gorgeous and ALL downhill. This park has it figured out - you hike down the mountain and then take a free shuttle back up to the parking lot at the top. Now that’s my kind of adventure! In addition to seeing several huge sequoias, we had the trail completely to ourselves - which I loved. We even saw some cool bedrock mortars which were used to Native Americans to grind up their medicines and spices. So cool.

Ali standing in a field of flowers.

Pine bark with an incredible texture.

Special type of lily.

At the village we saw many sequoias on the Big Tree trail that loops around Round Meadow and learned even more about these fantastic trees at the Giant Forest Museum. Especially interesting is the life stages of the sequoia trees. They start with lots of branches and a very pointy top as they shoot up towards the tree canopy. As they age, they lose their lower branches due to lack of sunlight or fire and their tops round off when they reach the top of the canopy. Finally, when the trees are elderly, their tops die allowing the trunks to continue to grow larger and larger. We saw all of these life stages today.

After a tranquil lunch in the Pinecone Picnic area, we braved the narrow and windy road to Crystal Cave. This is a very special marble cave. Did you know that most caves are limestone with only 2% being marble? The cave tour was great and the cave was incredibly well preserved. Except for use by Native Americans since ancient times, this cave has been under the protection of the National Parks Service since public tours began, so the formations are mostly intact with little breakage due to theft or vandalism. We saw lots of flowstone including stalagmites and stalactites. We saw cave bacon and rimstone dams. 

Cave bacon is always a crowd pleaser.

After dinner, we took freezing cold showers at the Lodgepole Visitors Centre and did our laundry. The boys earned their Junior Ranger badges and Seamus and Ian attended the ranger talk on how to be a sequoia conservationist. Alistair was too exhausted to attend so Liam and I stayed behind with him at the campsite so he could go to bed earlier. It has been a busy day!