National Parks: Sequoia and Kings Canyon

We took a trip up north this past weekend with Meredith's sister and her husband to do some hiking and camping in two national parks. Our time away from urban LA County was great. We saw some amazing things and camped out under an incredible starry sky.

Some images from our trip...


The drive up the 5 and 99 are pretty bland and unspectacular, but then you turn off toward the park and things start getting hilly.


Once in, you are greeted with some spectacular sights. The roads through the parks are engineering marvels - skirting the mountains with breathtaking panoramas.


And then you start to see the big sequoias.


Sadly we were unable to leave the smog behind. Because of the incredible population that runs through central California, Sequoia National Park has lost some of the long distance views.


But it in spite of the creeping pollution you can still catch a glimpse at it's majestic beauty.


Oh, and did I mention trees? Here we check out some massive sequoias - you can see how they dwarf the car and people (that's me pointing up).


One of our day hikes took us past this beautiful meadow.


We also got to see the world's largest tree (by total mass), General Sherman. Click on the image to get a glimpse of how small the people are. I have to admit it was a pretty surreal experience. Nothing feels real - it reminded me of going to Disneyland... stuff just seemed way bigger than it should be.


This is us at the base of the General.


This picture looks cold - still snow on the ground in parts of the park, and into the 30s at night. So yes, it was cold at times.


We then moved north into Kings Canyon National Park. I was really blown away at the rugged nature of this place. I've never been to the rockies, but if these mountains are small I can't imagine how big those must be.


I can't believe how some of these images turned out. It was almost too easy to take pictures here - just point the camera and capture something beautiful.


This is us in front of some major mountains. My favorite view of the trip was right here at this spot.


I keep using the word "rugged" when I describe Kings Canyon, but I'm not sure if that does it justice.


Here we see Meredith toying with the edge of the cliff and trying to give me a heart attack.


Kings Canyon also includes General Grant - the nation's Christmas Tree (kind of silly considering it looks nothing like a Christmas Tree).


One of the major problems with taking pictures of these behemoths is that you can rarely squeeze the entire tree into a picture. They are so tall (250 feet) and wide that you have to stand way back, often with other trees blocking your view. So you end up with pictures like the last two - one of the top, and one of the bottom.

So that is our trip! Hope you enjoyed getting to see a bit of it.