YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

First of all, let me say, we have been without cell service and internet service for 2 weeks!  It is weird how at first, we were freaking out.  It was like how in the world are we going to manage without cell service, internet service, and television.  By the end of the 2 weeks, we had pretty much learned how to survive without those things.

We stayed at Yosemite Lakes campground.  It is a Thousand Trails park, but it also has retail sites.  It is a pretty park.  It has quite a few sites that are right on the river.  However, there was a flood in the area that pretty much wiped those out.  They have been working on restoring the area and those sites should be open in the next week or two.  The only sites that were open were 30 amp sites.  Most of the newer RVs are 50 amp, so that was an adjustment too. We didn't have to worry too much about a/c because most of the time we were there, it was cold.  There was even a day of snow! The park closed one afternoon because of it.  I think the park received 6-8 inches of snow.  We received about 4 inches at the campground. For someone from H-town in Texas, snow is always amazing and mesmerizing to me.

Our friends, Keith and Olivia, flew in the first weekend we were there.  When you only have a few days, you hit the ground running and that's exactly what Keith and Olivia did.  They managed to get a cabin at the campground so that worked out perfectly.

We immediately went on a hike, visited the Visitor Center, took another short hike, and came back and collapsed! The next day, Keith and Mr. W went to the top of Yosemite Falls.  The trail is difficult and it is up, up, up.  They were gone from 8:00 until 6:00.  When they returned, Keith referred to Mr. W as a "mountain goat".  So, now he has a new nickname! The last day they were here, we went on a couple more hikes and just enjoyed each other's company.  We always have fun with them.

Me and Olivia   

Keith and Olivia

We made several more trips into the park.  We took several more hikes.  We went to the Historic Majestic Hotel and had lunch.  We rode the shuttle to avoid trying to find a parking spot. We looked for animals. We only saw deer. Yosemite is a park of waterfalls and we saw MANY beautiful waterfalls.  The park has done a great job of making most of the trails beautiful.  Not necessarily easy, but beautiful!

We came at this time of the year to beat the crowds. Little did we know that quite a bit of the park is still closed because of snow and ice.  Tioga Road is closed.  Glacier Point is closed.  Merced Grove is closed. One of the hikes that Mr. W wanted to do wasn't available to do.  Had we done our homework and known this, we might would have visited in May instead of April.  I cannot imagine how crowded this place gets in the summer.  There is not very much parking and it got crowded on good weather days and on the weekends now.  I think the next time I visit, I will visit in September or maybe October.

It is one of the most beautiful National Parks that I have ever seen.  I would recommend it to everyone.  You owe it to yourself to visit here at least once in your life.  I love Yosemite!

Me and my friend Lauree

The Historic Majestic Hotel

KING'S CANYON NATIONAL PARK

Kings Canyon National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Fresno and Tulare Counties, California in the United States. Originally established in 1890 as General Grant National Park, it was greatly expanded and renamed to Kings Canyon National Park on March 4, 940. General Grant National Park was initially created to protect a small area of giant sequoias from logging. Although John Muir's visits brought public attention to the huge wilderness area to the east, it took more than fifty years for the rest of Kings Canyon to be designated a national park. Environmental groups, park visitors and many local politicians wanted to see the area preserved; however, development interests wanted to build hydroelectric dams in the canyon. Even after President Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded the park in 1940, the fight continued until 1965, when the Cedar Grove and Tehipite Valley dam sites were finally annexed into the park.

As visitation rose post-World War II, further debate took place over whether the park should be developed as a tourist resort, or retained as a more natural environment restricted to simpler recreation such as hiking and camping. Ultimately, the preservation lobby prevailed and today, the park has only limited services and lodgings despite its size. Due to this and the lack of road access to most of the park, Kings Canyon remains the least visited of the major Sierra parks, You can reach King's Canyon through Sequoia or it has an entrance directly into the park. 

We had heard that the weather was going to be bad on Saturday with snow and rain, so we decided to try to get to King's Canyon on Friday.  We didn't want to be driving in snow and ice! We knew it was going to start raining in the afternoon late so we tried to go early and leave before the rain.  When we got to the park, most of the roads were closed from winter and would not be open until May.  Also, most of the hiking trails were closed too.  There is a grove of the giant sequoias, where the General Grant tree is located, and that was pretty much the only thing open. We stopped at one of the visitors' center and asked about driving to the view point of the canyon. We were told that we could only drive down to Hume Lake and on our way, we might get a glimpse of the canyon. We drove to the lake, but it was so cloudy and hazy, we couldn't see the canyon.

Needless to say, our day at King's Canyon was a bust.  We called it a day early. One good thing happened. After we got to lower ground, the sun decided to come out. With all the beautiful wildflowers out right now, the sun made for some neat pictures of the flowers! We are headed to Yosemite next. Rumors of possible flooding had Yosemite close down for the day on Saturday.  It was a false alarm and opened back up Sunday.  Cross your fingers for good weather!

One end of a fallen Sequoia

General Grant tree

Notice the fire hydrant

This fallen tree was where the men lived until the previous cabin was built

The other end of the tree

We couldn't be in Texas to take pics in the bluebonnets, so this will have to do.

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK

Once we decided to travel west this year, one of my bucket list visits was to Sequoia National Park.  I had to see the "big" trees.

We are staying in Lemon Cove in a private campground named Lemon Cove Village.  When Mr. W made the reservation, this park was listed in the Coast to Coast book.  He called to make reservations and was told by the office that they weren't  C2C. He called C2C to ask why they were in the book. C2C told him that they were C2C and he needed to call back.  He did and was told the same thing.  So, he called C2C and complained.  They told him that they didn't take anyone out of their book and as far as they knew, this park was C2C.  When we arrived, there was a sign in the office saying they were C2C.  Do what???? Mr. W started pressing the lady in the office.  She stuttered around and finally said that the owner had not gotten the paperwork in when Mr. W had called for reservations. They were now C2C but you had to give them 24 hour notice that you were C2C.  Hello?  We had given them 3 months notice.  She said it wasn't her call, it was the owner's call.  So, he made her call the owner. We got our C2C discount.  Geez!  It is a nice enough park and it is close to the entrance of Sequoia.  I'm just not sure that it is worth the cost even with the discount.  For those of you who boondock, there is a really nice campground on a beautiful lake that is on the road to Sequoia.  I think it is Horse Creek campground.

We went into Sequoia and slowly made our way through all the stops.  Our friend Terri was with us.  We didn't do any trails hikes.  Most of the roads are still closed.  Mr. W was very concerned about chains for the tires.  There were signs at the entrance and throughout that said the chains could be required at any time.  You can rent them from several stores on the road.  He was not sure they would have them to fit a pickup truck.  He called Pep Boys and they would sell them and if you do not use them, you can return them and get a refund except for a $20 restocking fee.  Pep Boys it was. 

One of the main attractions in Sequoia is the General Sherman tree.  It is the largest living tree. The General Sherman was named after the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, in 1879 by naturalist James Wolverton, who had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry under Sherman. In 1931, following comparisons with the nearby General Grant tree, General Sherman was identified as the largest tree in the world. One result of this process was that wood volume became widely accepted as the standard for establishing and comparing the size of different trees.

In January 2006 the largest branch on the tree (seen most commonly, in older photos, as an "L" or golf-club shape, protruding from about a quarter of the way down the trunk) broke off. There were no witnesses to the incident, and the branch — larger than most tree trunks; diameter over 6.6 ft and length over 98 ft — smashed part of the perimeter fence and cratered the pavement of the surrounding walkway. The breakage is not believed to be indicative of any abnormalities in the tree's health, and may even be a natural defense mechanism against adverse weather conditions.

Look at the tiny people at the bottom.

Sequoia was established as a National Park on September 25, 1890.  The area which now comprises Sequoia National Park was first home to "Monachee" (Western Mono) Native Americans, who resided mainly in the Kaweah River drainage in the Foothills region of the park, though evidence of seasonal habitation exists as high as the Giant Forest. In the summertime, Native Americans would travel over the high mountain passes to trade with tribes to the East. To this day, pictographs can be found at several sites within the park, notably at Hospital Rock and Potwisha, as well as bedrock mortars used to process acorns, a staple food for the Monachee people.

Pictographs at Hospital Rock

By the time the first European settlers arrived in the area, smallpox had already spread to the region, decimating Native American populations. The first European settler to homestead in the area was Hale Tharp, who famously built a home out of a hollowed-out fallen giant sequoia log in the Giant Forest next to Log Meadow. Tharp allowed his cattle to graze the meadow, but at the same time had a respect for the grandeur of the forest and led early battles against logging in the area. From time to time, Tharp received visits from John Muir, who would stay at Tharp's log cabin. Tharp's Log can still be visited today in its original location in the Giant Forest. However, the trail is closed right now. It should open around April 27th. Ugh!

However, Tharp's attempts to conserve the giant sequoias were at first met with only limited success. In the 1880s, white settlers seeking to create a utopian society founded the Kaweah Colony, which sought economic success in trading Sequoia timber. However, Giant Sequoia trees, unlike their coast redwood relatives, were later discovered to splinter easily and therefore were ill-suited to timber harvesting, though thousands of trees were felled before logging operations finally ceased.

The National Park Service incorporated the Giant Forest into Sequoia National Park in 1890, the year of its founding, promptly ceasing all logging operations in the Giant Forest. The park has expanded several times over the decades to its present size; one of the most recent expansions occurred in 1978, when grassroots efforts, spearheaded by the Sierra Club, fought off attempts by the Walt Disney Corporation to purchase a high-alpine former mining site south of the park for use as a ski resort. This site known as Mineral King was annexed to the park. Its name dates back to early 1873 when the miners in the area formed the Mineral King Mining District.  Mineral King is the highest-elevation developed site within the park and a popular destination for backpackers.

Again, look at the people at the bottom.  All part of the Giant Forest.

A slice of one of the trees

Another major attraction in the park is Crystal Cave.  It is the second longest cave in the park at 3.4 miles long.  It is a constant 48 degrees.  It was discovered in 1918 and very well preserved for the amount of visitors it receives annually.  Caves are found every year in the park.  As a matter of fact, 17 have been found since 2003 alone.  Of course, you guessed it, Crystal Cave wasn't open.  A ranger did say that it wasn't because of snow, it was because of melting snow causing a lot of water in the cave.  The cave should open the first part of May.

The drive to and from the park was beautiful. We saw many beautiful wildflowers.  At least we were in primetime for wildflowers! If you decide to visit, you probably want to wait until May.  But, I'll take this visit! Check - One more off the bucket list.