Sequoia National Park

Today would be a big day: we would get to see the gigantically famous Giant Sequoias. We started our day early, full of excitement and anticipation. The first – unpleasant – surprise was the park entrance: we couldn’t get to the Giant Forest without snow chains, so we had to drive back to the last town and rent some, which cost us a lot of time and money – who’d have thought it would be over $60 to rent them (they probably don’t even cost that much new). 

Once back in the park the snow chain warning had lifted for the Giant Forest… So we drove up there and visited General Sherman’s Tree, in volume the largest tree in the world. Quite impressive. On the trail towards the tree, many other Giant Sequoias can be admired, which is nice but the trail conditions not so much. It was covered in melting snow, and we were so smart to wear our all-stars – famous for being waterproof... 

The second largest tree is the General Grant Tree, which we wanted to see of course. But to our – second – surprise, we couldn’t get there: the road was closed. So we went to the visitor center to check, and we were told that it was due to ice and fallen trees. Why did we need snow tires? At that point, the ranger got a phone call telling him the road had been opened. So we drove up there, waiting for somebody to come and actually open the gates. But no-one came. After checking again with the ranger, he apparently had misunderstood the phone call, the road had only been opened for a short part at the other side. 

So we had to drive out of the park, all the way around to the North to the other entrance to go see one famous tree. But how could we not? When we got there, it was almost dark, as it was already far in the afternoon, totally overcast, raining and misty. But that actually made the gigantic trees look even more mystical. We didn’t get to see much more of the park though, because we had to drop off our unused snow chains in time. We couldn’t even take the main road through the park – which had finally opened – anymore. 

So it was a very tiresome day for just a few trees. Of course we saw much more, but still… Even more so because Sequoia National Park was a big detour from our route through the West and in the evening we still had to drive a couple of hours to the gates of Death Valley.

For more photo's, check picasa