Sequoia National Park

The battery alarm started shrieking just after midnight when the batteries failed! They didn’t last long tonight. With our hearts pounding we both took a long time to get back to sleep. But in the morning we awoke, and I started up the generator and moments later we had the camper cozy and warm. Today is our final day of touring. Tonight’s destination is the KOA in Visalia CA a chance to clean everything with a full hookup. No batteries required! Tomorrow is a 5 hour drive to Indio, we are looking forward to arriving there and reconnecting.

We reserved our site for an extra day so we could take our time driving and checking out the sites in Sequoia. The KOA is a pretty short drive once we leave. Again we descended with three main stops in mind. Hanging Rock, Moro Rock, and the General Sherman Sequoia.

Our first stop was Hanging Rock which gave us a great view of Moro Rock!

Moro Rock is pretty accessible its a climb of about 300 stairs to get to the top where you have incredible views of the valley. Unfortunately the air quality tends to be pretty bad, due to smog from the bay area getting sucked in.

We had noticed a lot of helicopter activity, and thought maybe they were doing some rescue training, but one of the other hikers said that it was actually linemen that they were dropping in to do some electrical work! yes, there is a person dangling below that helicopter!

Here is Jane driving the truck through the Tunnel Log!

And finally, the largest tree in the world! 22 stories high and 36 feet in diameter. Pictures really do not do justice to how awe inspiring

Exploring Kings Canyon

I would start with Kings Canyon being one of the unsung heroes of our national parks! It is incredible in its beauty and the awesome Sequoias really do inspire awe. But let me back up a bit.

Lets talk about the joys of camping: In the car as we were leaving Yosemite, we were talking about the experience in the rain, and we decided that we were going to give in and buy a little generator. It’s no fun trying to conserve and conserve. Jane already knew there was a Costco right on our way through Fresno so I looked online but Costco didn’t really have anything for us. We stopped at Home Depot because it looked like they should have some, but they didn’t. Our last try was Tractor Supply in Clovis, and they had one 2500 Watt Champion on the shelf. Sold! We also bought a gas can, and $614 later we were on our way and very happy.

No worries about bumping in and getting the stabilizers up when you have a portable generator.

Fresno is at about 1000 feet of elevation, but our campsite is over 6000! We climbed a LOT coming in from the hot foothills. The worrying thing when we got to our site was that our battery had not really charged on the drive here! We are trying a little experiment now to see if using the generator will charge it some.

Once we set up camp we hiked over to Grant’s Grove to see the sequoias! The one named for General Grant is 40 feet wide 268 feet tall and 1700 years old!!

The next morning we awoke, and did our usual morning ritual, only when Jane flushed the toilet we got an alarm signal from the control panel. The batteries were so far drained that they could hardly run the water pump.

The batteries in the camper are over 5 years old. And as Jane was reading in the Rockwood group online we probably got an extra year out of them! But it’s amazing how fast they went downhill. I just can’t imagine we have a short or something that would cause them to drain like that.

So we waited until 7:00 an hour after quiet hours were done and started up the generator. Lights, flushing, even toast!! Yes Jane had toast for breakfast in a place we would not normally get toast without AC power.

After a bit of breakfast and coffee we headed out for the Kings Canyon drive. Its about 40 miles and ends in a roundabout called end of road. Mist Falls was our hiking destination for the morning. A beautiful hike along the river that carved these beautiful V-shaped valleys over millions of years. The hike was 2000 feet blow our campsite but the views as we descended into the valley were amazing. We were even treated to another bear sighting, a mama and one cub.

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Our second stop of the day was a quick roadside stop at Roaring Falls

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We stopped for a quiet lunch at Cedar Village among the Redwoods, Cedars, and Sequoias. Then we climbed back out to our campground enjoying the views of the Canyon along the way. I think this one really captures the steep V-shaped nature of the canyon!

We had thought about going out for dinner but opted to eat at the campsite and enjoy one last fire and the beautiful night sky!

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Rainy Day at Curry Village

Overnight the rain started, a slow uneven splatter on the roof of the camper that made it impossible to get back to sleep. Worry over the flood watch did nothing to help in that department either.

After sitting around the camper for a time Jane decided, and I followed, that we would take the shuttle to the visitor center, visit the Ansel Adams gallery and maybe walk back to the lower falls to see if the rain had any effect on them.

We also stopped at the store. I found a hat, which Jane also likes, and Jane found a nice sweatshirt/fleece. I also found a nice bottle of bourbon. The lady at the checkout thought that the bourbon was the smartest purchase of the day!

With our purchases in hand we headed for the falls only to detour through the cemetery - of all places - which dumped us out into the middle of staff housing. Looking a little lost we found the trail to the falls again and followed it to the viewing area.

You can see the falls in this shot from yesterday, you can also see way up the mountainside.

Today’s view does look like a bit more water falling. But notice how much the clouds are blocking the rest of the view!

Unfortunately the clouds are very low and completely blocking out any view of anything today. So even when the rain slows to a trickle it wouldn’t be worth it as we would not be able to enjoy any views.

Meanwhile we are rationing the battery on the StarLink turning it on and off, bringing it out to the clearing by our camper when the rain slows. We thought about walking over to Curry Village for dinner but most of the seating is outdoors so we will probably just eat in tonight.

In a funny wild kingdom kind of moment, our next door neighbor’s son opened their bear box only to find a mouse perched on his backpack. The mouse was quickly dislodged, but just sat there in front of the bear box without moving. No amount of prodding could get it to go anywhere. A bit later I happened to notice one of the big gray squirrels stalking the mouse. Slowly… slowly… Then all of the sudden it pounced on that little mouse and killed it. It scampered away with dinner. I didn’t know that squirrels were carnivorous!

The lack of sun does nothing to recharge the batteries in the camper so we are conserving there as well, although I know we could plug the camper into the truck in order to slide in and pull up the stabilizers, we would rather not resort to that. We might even be able to steal some power from the bathroom next door in an emergency.

Overall we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather on this trip. This is really our only washout day. We are still holding out hope that the clouds will lift in a while.

Yosemite Village Bike Ride

It was a short drive to Yosemite village, so we got in just after noon, and set up camp. Rain was in the forecast so we decided to go for a short bike ride. It was nice and we took a quick trip to the lower falls, which were barely falling.

Back at the campground we both thought it was nearly five, so we started happy hour, but it was barely after 3:00. Its 5:00 somewhere! With the likelihood of rain we had taken out the white ragout to warm up on the stove for dinner.

After dinner was some streaming on the iPad.

I didn’t get a great nights sleep as the rain started sometime during the night and the noise of the rain on the roof of the camper made it hard for me to sleep. Especially with the flood watch in the back of my mind and the knowledge that we are not camped very far away from the river.

Grand Staircase Escalante and Bryce Canyon

We awoke in the dark, to the sound of rain dripping outside our door. Falling back did not result in a lot of extra sleep. When it was light enough to see outside we saw that it was snowing. No rush to leave as the long hike we were planning was suddenly not going to be an option. So we took our time, and enjoyed the scenic drive and lots of scenic overlooks from Capital Reef to Bryce, with a little side trip down the Burr Trail.

Our first little hike was to the singing canyon.

Then we stopped at this amazing overlook about 17 miles down the Burr Trail. The trail goes for 74 miles before turning into a dirt road, and somehow connecting to a Lake Powell ferry. The overlook was far enough for us.

Here is a view looking back down the trail.

After a delicious lunch at the Burr Trail Burger joint, we drove through Escalante and enjoyed some great views.

We finished up the day with a great late afternoon hike in Bryce Canyon. It was cold and snowy when we checked in to the lodge. But we decided to head over to the rim anyway to check out the views. As we got there the sun started to peek out. We hiked from the Sunset Viewpoint to the Sunrise Viewpoint. About 3 miles, with a solid climb to get out of course. It was great to get down in the canyon out of the wind. The longer we were down there the sunnier it got and the views just got better with every step.

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Tomorrow will be a long day in the car, driving from Bryce to Indio. Maybe through Zion depending on road conditions in the morning.

Beautiful late afternoon hike in Bryce Canyon!

Capital Reef

We love to use the drive to California each Fall to visit some of the national parks. But it is tricky to find a national park to visit this time of year. Most things are shutting down, and in many parks the scenic drives are closing, and the risk of snow increases every day. Our original plan had been to visit Great Basin, but park officials closed the scenic drive two weeks ago. So we rerouted to Capital Reef. We are glad we did. The drive in was spectacular, going past Goblin Valley state park. As you approach from the North, its not hard to imagine you are seeing a goblin sleeping on its back.

Sleeping Goblin

What was so great about this time of year is the contrast of the yellow leaves on the Cottonwoods and Aspens, both as you approach the park, and as you drive through.

There are many interesting hikes in the park. For our schedule we chose do do the Hickman Bridge, which is about two miles and fairly easy. The views are great.

Or in some cases spectacular!

We also did a much shorter hike to Sunset Point, This was fantastic because we were the ONLY people on the trail, so we had the point all to ourselves to enjoy 360 degrees of viewing.

Today the plan is to make our way down to Bryce Canyon. Its cold and raining so we might not see as much as we had hoped, then Monday we will hop on the freeway and make our way to Indio! Can’t wait to reconnect with all our friends, and get back on the golf course and pickleball court.

Yosemite

Yosemite

The plan was to go to Napa. But we have been to Napa in fact we had been to Napa already this year. So instead we decided to try Yosemite. Its a lot further drive from Mountain View but we love our national parks and so this was a nice chance to take a long weekend break and visit someplace we had never visited before.

As with most visits to a national park words don’t do it justice and neither do my pictures, but here goes.

The trail head at Mariposa Grove

After a seemingly endless drive in traffic to get out of Mountain View and especially someplace called “Old Gilroy” we spent our first night in Oakville. We arrived late, but just in time to get the last Pizza of the night from the friendly proprietor of Sugar Pine Pizza. We were ready to set off for Mariposa grove in the morning to see the giant redwoods.

The Grizzly Giant

From there we drove out to glacier point where we had a magnificent view of Half Dome. This is definitely one of the highlights of Yosemite. It is truly amazing, and the drop off from glacier point to the valley floor below is really breathtaking.

Half Dome from Glacier Point

We did a short hike at Glacier Point and then drove back and made a stop at the Sentinel Dome trailhead. This would be our good hike for the day. We wondered at first if we could really get to the top of Sentinel dome but we found that we could and the views were definitely worth it. We were really tired after the hike and more than happy to check in to the Majestic Yosemite Inn. Right there on the floor of the valley we had views of Half dome and El Capitan! Because it was early fall the waterfalls were basically dried up so now we have a reason to go back again some spring!

The view from Sentinel Dome

Sentinel Dome Selfie

The next morning we planned on hiking to mirror lake to see the morning views of Half Dome reflected in the clear calm waters. Umm... Little did we know that mirror lake is becoming a Meadow. Its part of the natural order of things, but it was a little disappointing after hiking two miles to find no water! Usually we are so good at researching these things!

We had plenty of day left so we decided to make the drive to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. It has some good hiking too although we only did a little as it was super hot when we got there. The reservoir is beautiful and its amazing to think that this reservoir supplies drinking water to San Francisco.

The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir