Spring Break Road Trip {Kings Canyon and Sequoia}

Welcome to Part 2 of our epic California National Park Road Trip Spring Break Adventure. If you missed Part 1: Yosemite, be sure to check that one out first!

Day 4 (Saturday, 19 Mar): We woke up in Fresno, grabbed some (super greasy and not that tasty) breakfast sandwiches from Wendy's, and headed for the hills. We drove to Kings Canyon National Park and made our first stop at the Grant Grove Village Visitors Center. Cal got her Jr. Ranger booklet and we looked around a bit and then drove up the road to Grant Grove to check out the sequoias. Now those are some big trees! It was really interesting to contrast them to the Coast Redwoods we saw last year in Northern California. All big, but definitely different. After Grant Grove we checked out Stump Grove, which is just what it sounds like: depressing stumps of cut down sequoias. I wasn't a fan, and we didn't linger there for long.

Days 3-4 legs of our trip.

Today's wordle view was not quite as scenic as yesterday's.

Sequoia!

I'm sure these all had names, but since I'm writing this blog
post almost three months after the fact, I can't remember them.
(Bad Kim!)

This was a fallen sequoia ("Fallen Monarch")
that we could walk through like a tunnel.

I think soldiers actually kept their horses in this tree
at some point in its history.

This one I know is General Grant Tree
(because it has a fence around it).

The Gamlin Pioneer Cabin, located very near General
Grant Tree.

Back around the loop to Fallen Monarch. They were
brave and went through the log by themselves while 
Gregg and I took the trail around back to the parking lot.

The stumps make me so sad.

After we got our fill of the Kings Canyon area, we headed toward Sequoia. Originally, we thought we'd have to backtrack the way we came and go up into Sequoia from Three Rivers, BUT the Generals Highway that connects the two parks had just opened the day before, and the storm we were trying to beat hadn't arrived yet, so we got to drive the windy road between the two. It took us through a lot of burned area from last year's KNP Complex Fire. Yowza!

Things were a lot busier on the Sequoia side of the highway. As we got closer to General Sherman Tree, we saw more and more cars. The summer parking area and trails/shuttle system hadn't opened up yet, so cars were just lining the highway and parking wherever they could squeeze in. Gregg dropped us off at the General Sherman area and told us he'd be back in 20 minutes to pick us up. I was bummed he wasn't going to see the biggest tree in the world with us, but it was the best we could do. The kids and I hopped out and started up the trail and what do you know just a few minutes later we saw Gregg walking toward us. He had found a little spot on the side of the road a little ways past the parking lot and snatched it. Hooray! We were able to explore the grove together, which was really nice.

Cal and General Sherman.

That there's some tree!

It was pretty chilly, and actually, there were
tiny, beautiful snowflakes falling on us as we
walked through the grove.

Another view of Cal and Sherman.

I have no idea what this pose is. Ha.

A slice of sequoia. It had little markers with years
on it, like a timeline.

I was pretty impressed with the easel
that was holding it up.

Another little tunnel tree we walked through on the way
out of the grove.

After General Sherman Tree there was another parking lot area with a museum and more trails. But we couldn't find a spot to park, even though this was a bigger lot. We debated for a minute, but ended up continuing on down the (long and winding) road (theme of the trip, it turns out) toward the Three Rivers entrance. We stopped at Hospital Rock and enjoyed the budding trees and the info about the Native Americans who lived there long ago.

Our last stop after Hospital Rock was the visitors center at the Three Rivers Entrance.

The pictographs on Hospital Rock.

Here is where Native Americans ground acorns
into meal using boulder pestles in the bedrock mortar.

These pics show the fire from last summer
and how they tried to protect General Sherman
Tree.

Wildflower display in the visitors center.

We saw lots of blooming lupine on the drive
down from Sequoia, but these ones were
in a little garden outside the visitors center.

And they were ginormous!!

It was overcast/drizzly, so I didn't actually use this
but it reminded me of my mom and an app she uses
to capture and record clouds for citizen science.

 We left Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and headed further south to Bakersfield, where we crashed in the hotel. Unfortunately the outdoor pool was a bit chilly to swim in, but we took long, hot showers and ordered pizza, and watched March Madness. And planned out our next leg of the journey: the beach!