Once we left Glacier Point in Yosemite, we continued south out of the park, headed for Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park. There is no easy route to get from Yosemite to Kings Canyon, even though the parks border one another. We had to instead head due south to Fresno before hanging a left and driving east to Kings Canyon. It was a long day of driving. When we arrived at the park, we learned that Kings Canyon was inaccessible due a wild fire that weakened the roads. It had been burning since July, torching 150,000 acres in the process. We were a little disappointed that we weren’t going to see the Canyon after it being recommended by several people that we met on the road, but the giant sequoias were the major draw for us anyways. We finally got to the Azalea Campground just before sunset. We picked a site towards the back of the campground and then walked to a rock overlook in the woods to watch the pinkest of sunsets. It was as if the entire horizon was a giant neon tube.
The next morning we again went for a walk in the woods with the goal of finding General Grant, the second largest tree in the world. It is also the National Christmas Tree, but it looks nothing like a Christmas tree. We wandered around for 30 minutes, but never did find the trail that was supposed to take us there. After that debacle (it was a nice walk, though), we piled in the campervan and drove one minute down the road to a parking lot right next to the General Grant grove. This was our first exposure to the sequoias, which are just as impressive as everyone said they’d be. In addition to the General Grant tree and several other large living sequoias, there was also a felled tree that you can walk through. They had a picture on display of early park workers living in the same tree in the early 1900s.
When we were done with the Grant Grove, we drove down to see General Sherman, the largest living organism in the world. It is also located in a grove of other giants.
Once the trees all began looking the same – which didn’t take long – we loaded back up in the campervan and drove out of the park on the most absurdly twisty road we’ve ever seen. After the 20th switchback, we weren’t quite sure if we were actually getting down the mountain or just stuck in some weird 4th dimension loop.
