Day 3: Tuesday 15th June 2010: Kings Canyon/ Sequoia National Parks (Miles to Date: 673)

The mattresses on the beds in our cabin were so uncomfortable and the night temperatures had dropped considerably from the day before, that we woke stiff and cold. Breakfast was a cobbled together affair from provisions we had bought at the pricey market in the Village.Barely refreshed, we ventured out to explore the delights of the Sequoias. Our first port of call was the Visitors Center at Lodgepole, one of the two main National Parks complexes in the Park. Perusing the schedule of events for the day it became apparent that it would be difficult to fit everything in that we would liked to have done. After some debate we decided to do the tour of the Crystal Caves and skip the Ranger programme talks scheduled for that day. We had some time before our tour so we headed out to drive through the Forest of the Giants, the main Sequoia Grove in the Park. It was wonderful to see the numerous Sequoias scattered throughout this area. Just a short drive from the Visitor's Center was a turn-off for “Moro Rock” and “Tunnel Log”.

As with many of these forests of giant trees there are all sorts of “feature” trees. Along this drive there were two main tree exhibits; “Autolog” and “Tunnel Log”. The former is a large fallen Sequoia which during the early years of the Park was used as a parking driveway for visitors to the park. Today cars are not allowed on to the “Autolog” but it is easy to see the evidence of it's past life; grooves have been made in the tree's trunk by the passage of numerous vehicles. Whilst cars are no longer allowed up on to the tree, people are, and it took no encouragement whatsoever for Jack and Emily to run up and down it's length. The most fun part for them was to reach the root end of the tree and stare the 20 feet or so down to the ground below.

The second feature tree is “Tunnel Log” which is, as it's name suggests, a tunnel carved out of a tree. Unlike some other “tunnel” trees this is not carved out of a live standing tree, but is made from a prone Sequoia which obviously has fallen across the path of a road. We had some fun driving backwards and forwards through the tunnel taking pictures. Probably more impressive overall is a cluster of eight giant Sequoias called the “Parker Group” after the eight members of Captain James Parker's family. Captain Parker was a former Superintendent of the Sequoia National Park.

A short distance from “Tunnel Log” is “Moro Rock”. This is an impressive granite monolith that has been pushed out of the surrounding mountain to form a dome-like structure, similar to the famous “Half-Dome” at Yosemite National Park. Just as we arrived at the car park Emily had a bit of a melt down, so she decided to stay in the car while the rest of us went to explore the Rock. The climb to the top of “Moro Rock” is via a set of some 400 stairs which wind their way up sheer rock faces, with a vertical drop-off of several hundred feet to the sides. A short way up Mark decided he did not fancy the climb so he came back down to read the information boards on the geography of the Rock. Unbeknownst to him Emily had decided to rejoin the family and began to climb the stairs to find us. She got about halfway up when she realised she did not like the heights, or more likely the drops, so she just sat down and began to cry. At this point Jack and Karen were on the top of “Moro Rock” enjoying the spectacular views across the valleys to the distant Sierra Nevada mountains. Luckily some other visitors took pity on Emily and went back up to the top to find Karen. Jack descended to meet up with Emily, followed by a more cautious Karen, who herself was feeling a nervous of the walk back down. Finally the whole party were reunited, much to all their relief, and started their descent to the bottom. Mark, unaware of all the drama, was patiently waiting at the base of the Rock and was most surprised to see Emily in tears when she reached him. It took quite some time for her to recover her composure. The photo here is of the widest , safest part...further up there were passing places on a narrow trail and a rock wall at knee height between a walker and certain death!

It was by now getting close to the time of our tour of the Crystal Caves, so we jumped into our car and headed on the winding road to the trail head for the Caves. It was a 15 minute walk from the car park to the Cave's entrance. It was a very pleasant walk down into a verdant, luscious valley along a steep trail path. Coming the other direction were people from the previous tour, who looked very red faced from the exertion of climbing back up the hill. The altitude here at the Park is somewhere in the range of 6000 to 7000 feet, so any form of exercise is much harder here. Finally we reach the bottom of the path to the cave, passing by a pretty set of waterfalls. As this is a guided tour we had to wait in the cave entrance for our tour party to form. This was to be a special tour as the lighting system in the caves had failed so we had to use torches (flash lights) to illuminate our way through the Cave.

The usual tour party is made up of around 50 people, but for our tour there was only 10 people, so we had a easy access to the Tour Guide. Our Guide gave us a brief overview of the history, geology and ecology of the Cave. He explained that the Cave was home to nine species of bats, but that they tend to stay away from areas where the tours passed through. On cue a bat flew into our part of the cave and did several aerobatic manoeuvres before heading back out! Almost embarrassed, the Guide ushered us into the first of the Cave's chambers where we got to see the usual range of formations, such as stalactites, stalagmites, curtains, popcorn etc. We had been to many caves, but the experience of doing this under torch light gave it a more spiritual feeling. The most special moment was when we all switched off our torches and listened as our Guide gave us more information about the Cave. All too soon it was time to leave the cool 50 degree subterranean temperatures to return to the 80 degree temperature of the forest. The journey back up the hill only served to show us why the people we had met on the way down were red-faced.

We decided that to end our day we'd revisit the Forest of the Giants to see the museum dedicated to the Giant Sequoias. Outside the museum is a magnificent specimen of a Sequoia monarch, called “Sentential”, which is deemed to be an average tree, but it is still impressively huge. Inside the museum there are a number of exhibits that cover the ecology of the Sequoias.

It turns out that the perfect conditions that have resulted in the establishment of the Sequoias have only been around for 4,500 years, which is only 1 ½ Sequoia lifetimes. Sadly as the the scourge of global warming works its damaging effects on the environment it is unclear as to what the long term prognosis is for these arboreal giants. Never mind we were here to live in the moment and enjoy these trees. As we discovered some of the Sequoias in this forest have been around for 3000 years and have survived droughts, vast temperature swings and forest fires, so they are tough and adaptable so perhaps they might be around for some time to come.

A short drive from the museum is another signature tree, the “General Sherman” tree”. This is purported to be the largest living tree in the world, with a base diameter of approaching 36 feet. We took the ½ mile walk from the car park to the “General Sherman”. Jack in particular loved these giants of the forest.

We left the “General Sherman” behind and returned to Grant Grove Village and our “lovely” cabin. The final event for our day was to attend the fireside Park Ranger programme talk. The Ranger gave a presentation about the potential impact of global warming (or cooling) on several National Parks; Joshua Tree, Glacier and Sequoia / Kings Canyon. It was not the best Ranger talk we had been to, but it was still a pleasant way to finish our visit to these twin National Parks. So there was nothing more to do but to return to the cabin, pack-up our belongings and prepare ourselves for an early start the next day on our trip down to Death Valley National Park.