23. & 24. Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, California

Yosemite National Park Photo Album

Sequoia National Park Photo Album

Tunnel View

Alas, we committed our first faux pas of our trip!!!  welllll we were having sooo much fun at Maggie and Max's that we forgot to leave on Tuesday morning...instead we were merrily going along visiting Alcatraz..happy go lucky ....until we checked my iPhone calendar that said we should have checked in at Yosemite.......dohhhhhhh ......oh well so 2 nights at Yosemite quickly turned into 1 night. So we knew we had to make the most of it ....we drove quickly to the park and arrived around 1 o'clock...prime time for it to be a complete and absolute ZOO. It was absolutely impossible trying to park the van in the village ....so we had to circle around and around...until we decided to park about 2 km away from the village and biked in. That's when viewing of all the glorious landscape began. We biked to the bottom Yosemite Falls and were flabbergasted at the intensity of the water coming down the rock face....and it was freezing....so we got a little wet and moved along. Then we drove over to El Capitan, Tunnel View, then up , up , up to Glacier Point, 7000 feet high.....wow the view was spectacular....it momentarily took our breath away!!! how can rocks be so beautiful ?...why do I go gaga over nature wonders like this?  I've seen the most special place so far in the Grand Canyon, yet I am reduced to tears every time I see such a vision. Maybe it's the history behind these million year old rocks and how they came to be in its present form that  moves me so much. Various emotions dance through my body as I sit there soaking it all in.....  trying to sear these memories into my brain. I just can get enough...between Yosemite and Seqouia Parks I have been so overwhelmed with an abundance of such beauty.  Finally I got myself together and headed down the mountain and went to Bridalveil Falls. By now it was getting dark...we decided to have supper in the park down in the village near a river and called it a night. The drive back to the campsite was intense as it was pitch dark and witch back and forth over the mountain range. yikes!!!

Sequoia National Park was our destination the next day.  Once again we had to drive switchbacking (see red line on the map) on the edge of the mountain up towards the national park. We took the Kings Canyon entrance but didn't have time to stop at the canyon as we wanted to visit all of Sequoia Park. Interesting fact...unlike the grand canyon which was formed buy flowing water such as the Colorado River, giving the canyon the v shape....the King's Canyon was formed by glaciers  thereby giving it a u shape basin!!











So we finally arrived at the visitor's center and were told to visit 3 main areas since we only had 1 day. General Grant tree, General Sherman Tree and the Giant Forest.

General Sherman Tree

Imagine our surprise at the sheer size of these beautiful trees...unless you have a reference point, it's hard to fathom their size and their age as some are over 1000 years old. We learned how these giants grew so fast,,,basically the seeds, which look like an oat seed, grow straight up as fast as they can to the sky for about 600 years...then continue to go in width after that....cool fact!!! So  we drove off to find General Grant,,,yes he was a beaut....took some quick pics and set off to find the biggest tree on earth (not in height but in width) General Sherman

General Grant Tree

 The parking for Sherman was about 1 km away from the tree and it was a   downhill walk getting to Sherman...which meant a vigorous hike up hill after we visit Sherman. We were greeted by so many other giant Sequoias along the way...just as beautiful as sherman. Along the path we saw a cross section of a giant sequoia tree trunk  and it was absolutely massive, see photo album .  Well, just as I was leaning against the tree I heard a lady call my name.....what ???? how was it possible that  I knew someone here !!! well it's a small world after all ...I met a former parent Judy Smith....wow ....after chatting and catching up for a while we took some photos and said goodbye. We continued to walk along and finally stood face to face with General Sherman.....as I stood there all 5 ft of me ... I was in awe....felt so small in front of this very old tree since Cleopatra was queen of Egypt while some of these trees were saplings, since some estimates of the ages of these tress run about 1800 to 2700 year of age. How do you wrap your head around that??? so I cried ....AGAIN!!

We stayed for a while then drove off to see the Giant Forest.  The forest was so beautiful as the giants were near a meadow....so the contrast of the lush green against the orange red sequoias was spectacular. The walk was pleasant as we meandered through the forest on a boardwalk. We left the park rather late and we still had a 2 1/2 hours to our hotel in Bakersfield. Tomorrow.....Vegas !!!

love always
Mary and Peter