Sequoia National Park
Day 2
After getting our faces eaten alive in Yosemite National Park the day before, we started off our day by visiting a nearby REI and buying mosquito repellent before driving off to our next destination — Sequoia National Park.
This was my first time going to Sequoia. Brian has mentioned many times the fond memories he has camping here with his family and family friends when he was younger, and how he wanted to take me one day.
As the 2nd national park to be established, it’s been through quite a bit throughout the years:
Sequoia National Park and King’s Canyon is situated so close together that visiting all the main attractions in both parks would be easily feasible… But we decided to take it slow and explore hiking trails outside of the main crowd-pulling attractions to make the most of our day.
It was pretty crowded in The Giant Forest. General Sherman Tree is the largest in the world by volume — and it is pretty damn massive:
Most of the crowds were around here. Lots of selfies and selfie sticks and waiting 15 minutes to get a shot in front of the General Sherman, and to walk through a tree tunnel.
Not long after, we branched away from the crowd and went on walking trails, not really going in any particular direction:
Later on, we looped around the Big Trees Trail, where there were park rangers dressed up in in late 1800/ early 1900s attire who stationed themselves in different parts of the trail. They were waiting for a kids tour to stop by so they could give a short presentation on how life was back then and how the park came to be established.
We returned to our car to drive through THE tunnel log. A big 275-foot tree turned tunnel after it fell in 1937, it’s a subject of many photographers on Instagram. I’m not sure how anybody on Instagram manages to get a picture here in broad daylight with no cars around. Cars were lined up around the loop to get a picture in the tunnel. I wish I had brought my tripod and gotten myself in the picture too… One of my downfalls in photography is feeling like I don’t want to inconvenience others by taking forever to get the shot I want. Perhaps it should be something I work on this year.
After reparking, the sun was slowly going down, and we headed to Beetle Rock to take in some vista views whilst eating gummy bears.
Lastly, we hiked up Moro Rock. It’s not a very harrowing hike, but there’s about 400 steps to endure before making it to the top. The sun was setting, and it was setting quick. We were fighting time at this point to reach the top before it descended over the mountains in the distance. Luckily, we made it just in time, and good thing we bought the mosquito repellent because it came in handy here.
Descending Moro Rock, and preparing to go home:
I think we racked up about 10 miles of walking that day… We picked up a Dominos pepperoni pizza that night on the way back to AirBnB. No regrets.
Stay tuned for Day 3, Kings Canyon.