Lemon Grove
Kings canyon (long drive really beautiful scenery) is to the north of Sequoia National Park and has some spectacular scenery. It did take us over an hour to get to the beginning of the Canyon though.
On the drive through the national park and into Kings Canyon was spectacular, steep cliffs covered in an interesting type of Yukka. Amazing bushes covered in white flowers, all with an amazing canyon with Kings River at the bottom.
It took over another hour to get through to the middle of the national park. At the end is a walk along King River just before it branches into 2 separate creeks. We were headed along the Mist falls trail which walks up the canyon then up to a spectacular waterfall. The area is very open woodland with the occasional Giant Sequoia but none of them were very giant. It seems at this lower altitude and with the dry sandy soil at the bottom of the Canyon they were struggling a little. We did see lots of Squirrels though and one in particular had the largest and bushiest tail ever. I mean he (We think it was a boy) had a tail that was bigger than he was. We stopped for a quick lunch of muesli (Granola they call it) bars and water. Min was a bit worried that Bears were going to try and eat her as she was the one carrying the food. While walking we met some people going the other way. They briefly mentioned that we should watch out for Rattle Snakes as they had seen 2 already on the walk. By this time on the trail the canyon had gotten narrower and the soil wetter so the trees and shrubs were much denser than before and closer to the path. We decided not to do the walk up the steep trail on one side of the canyon to Mist Falls and just do the loop at the bottom of the canyon. This was mainly due to there probably being more snakes up on the warmer sunnier more rocky Mist Falls trail, and also I wasn’t feeling up to going up steep slopes again. There was a small problem with our choice though, the snows had all melted in the previous week and had caused the river to rise blocking the loop track. So we happily turned around and wandered back down the path we had just come along. We didn’t see any rattle snakes even though Min kept a sharp eye out for them, what we did see though was Bear Poo. Min finally has proof (in the form of a Photo people) that Bears do Shit in the woods.
After our little adventure along the Mist Falls Trail we decided to have another last look at the Giant Giant Sequoia trees so we drove to General Grant tree. As you’d expect from the 2nd largest tree in the world it was huge. Again huge in a sense that words just don’t do it justice. Due to the higher altitude, the late afternoon and the lack of sunshine on anything but the top of the General Grant tree the temperature had dropped rather significantly by the time we were walking to the General Grant tree. Min quickly got cold and was shivering by the time we made it back to the trusty Dodge Charger. The walk around the General Grant Tree is awesome as there is a tree that has fallen down and you can walk through the length of the trunk. With between .5 to 1m of wood on the outside I was able to stand fully upright and walk through the 50m length of the tree. They truly are astounding plants!
We went to the Cider mill for dinner. With a name like the Cider Mill Lewis was expecting English type fare. Turns out that a Mexican couple owned the restaurant and it served Mexican food. Good food just not really what we were expecting from the name of the place. Then it was home and Jacuzzi under the stars again – lovely Lewis was big and brave and jumped into the pool (well rolled as it was only 4.5ft deep) the pool was 20 Celsius then climbed back in the Jacuzzi… there was no way I was doing it as I had only just finally got warm after the walk to the big tree earlier in the afternoon! Organized accommodation at Bakersfield for when we leave in the morning
No comments:
Post a Comment