Sequoia National Park


Sequoia National Park, July 27th 2020.

I flew from my apartment in Jax, FL to Brady’s place in Orange County. From his place in OC it was about 5 hours to Sequoia. It was an easy drive and traffic was light, especially once we got north of LA. As we got closer to the park, the scenery was increasingly more interesting. The one thing that we were surprised to notice, though, was that there weren’t many huge trees as we approached the park.  With the lack of big trees at first the traffic definitely made up for it in abundance. As any park/travel blog will tell you, it’s best to get to the parks early. We waited in line for a bit before getting our pass and heading in.

 

Due to COVID, the visitor’s center was closed so we kept driving along the main road, Generals Highway, until the views started to open up. Still no big trees, but we found the road was running along the edge of the Kaweah River down below. It was a hot, sunny day and the river looked great – so we pulled off on the side of the road and hiked down to the banks of the river.

As the signs will warn, the current here is pretty strong. We plunged into the cold water where it was deep enough to jump into, and then waded across the river to the other bank. From there, we could hike along the edge of the river to get better views and check out the area without getting swept away by the current. Here and there we found areas where the current wasn’t as strong and we’d hop in to cool off.

We didn’t stay here too long, but it was a great place to get out of the car, stretch our legs, and experience our first taste of the Sequoia wilderness.

 

Back in the car, we continued along Generals Highway until our next stop at Hospital Rock. We wouldn’t consider this one a “hike” because the rock is right across the street from a large parking lot. You can climb on the rock, and walk around it, but there isn’t much to see here. We still weren’t at the higher altitudes, so even from the top of the rock – there wasn’t much to see yet.

As we kept driving further into the park, there were viewpoints to pull over on the side of the road every few hundred feet or so. Some of these looked better than others, so we’d pull out to take in the sights and snap photos. These make for a good way to slightly break up what would otherwise be a slow and windy drive.


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