Today we took a vote in the car on the way down to the village. It was unanimous, 4-0 that we like King's Canyon more. That said, there was plenty to do in Sequoia National Park.
Our main adventure was to ride out the shuttle road. This one takes you to Moro Rock first. This is a massive rock that overlooks the entire area 360 degrees around you. Seth counted nearly 500 steps, and that didn't count the incline between stairs. Still, it was a short, but very busy hike.
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| We saw some beautiful bucks on our way to Moro Rock. |
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| We are climbing to the top of the rock and it is mostly stairs. |
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| Lovely views. Wish there was no smoke. |
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| We felt accomplished! |
We hopped in the car determined to beat all the crowd to the drive-through tree. Luckily when we arrived, no one was there. Dax was elated, because he got to drive through the tree as well. We also made several other stops, including the massive overturned stump, and Parker Grove. At Parker Grove, we even stood right in the middle of three massive sequoias growing close together.
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| We stood under the tree. |
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| We all got to drive through the tree (except Seth). This is Dax coming through! |
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| Then we walked on top, too! |
At the end of the road we came to Crescent Meadows. We were really keen to see a bear, and this seemed like an amazing hike for it. We walked around the meadow for around 2 miles, passing a ton of sequoias. There was a tree shaped like a chimney that was burned up, and you could look out the top. The was a fallen tree that someone had turned into a little house. There was even a large crescent-shaped meadow, but there was no bear, so we went back to the room.
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| We finally saw a doe on our walk. |
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| It was a lovely trail. |
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| There were lots of large trees along the meadows. |
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| We had such a nice time exploring. |
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| More lovely flowers. |
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| Dax is a good hike leader. |
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| There was one tree you could walk in and look up. |
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| Our marmot friend. |
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| The Parker Group |
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| It is so fun to walk among the giant trees. |
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| We also stopped by this giant tree that had fallen down. |
After lunch, Dax and Dad took a much needed nap, and Mom and Seth watched a movie. The afternoon was slipping away, but we were tired and grumpy. Eventually, Mom found a hike, but it was 3 miles, and that seemed like a lot. The boys were pretty grumpy about it, and we tried to shorten the loop with a few shortcuts, but the meadow was too boggy. Finally, we just started our way around.
The bugs were biting, and we walked the first quarter mile up the hill and around the parking lot. At a third of a mile we were about 100 yards from the van. It was pretty frustrating, but we did have a nice creek crossing. Dad was trying to distract the boys with conversations about our favorite and least favorite national parks, when Dax finally spotted that bear. It was up ahead of us in the meadow, and it knew there was a problem. It stood up on its hind feet and sniffed, trying to sense what was wrong. We watched for a few minutes, and then he dropped down on all fours and walked toward the trail in front of us.
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| The little stream crossing. |
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| Mom is still taking pictures of all the flowers. |
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| The bear standing up. Mom forgot her big camera on this trip. 😠|
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| We got a good look at him in the meadow. |
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| We were so excited! |
We decided to take a vote whether we wanted to continue along the loop, or turn around and retreat. We were almost halfway, and it was about a mile back to the car. The vote turned out 3-1, with only Mom wanting to push on.
We were on a high, so we stopped for ice cream back at the village. That went so well that we decided to just grab dinner at the grill. Then we headed back to the room for a little rest.
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| Mom loves her ice cream. |
Around 7:30, we decided to do one last hike to Sunset Rock. Along the way we say 4 gorgeous bucks still in the velvet. We've seen a lot more bucks than does on this trip. The hike was pretty, and we found a beautiful hillside of wild flowers. When we arrived at the rock, we found it to be a massive hill of granite. We found a nice place to sit and talk and only waited about 10 minutes for the sunset, which was perfect.
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| We saw these deer in the parking lot. |
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| Then a few more along the trail. |
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| Look at these flowers! |
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| It was like a pink and white blanket. |
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| Mom loved these flowers, too! |
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| We are having a good time. |
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| This was a good trail. |
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| You can see why it is called sunset rock. |
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| We had the best trip. |
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| We really missed Mark! |
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| Seth has grown a million inches this year. |
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| Dax, too! They are both so grown up. |
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| Heading back down the trail with moonlight! |
When we got back, we packed the van up. We had an early departure because Mom and Seth had to drop off Dad and Dax at the Fresno Airport. They were headed home for Dax's championship baseball game. Mom and Seth still had a long two-day drive home.
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| Heading on a plane for a baseball game. |
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| Mom and Seth stopped for the night to hang with the Pooles! |
