Our next stop was the King’s Canyon/Sequoia National Parks straight across the state. It was a long drive but well worth it as we found the sequoias to be beyond words and the light snow storm just added to the beauty and quietude of the groves.
We saw the General Sherman tree, in Sequoia NP, the largest living thing on the earth and is still growing even at approximately 2,200 years old.
The General Grant tree in Kings Canyon NP is the third largest living thing at nearly 20 centuries and is the Nations’ Christmas tree as proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge. In 1956 it was also designated as a National Shrine by President Harry Truman in memory of the Americans who have died in war.
There are so many of these gentle feeling giants in the two parks. Their longevity and the serenity make you ‘paws’ and become very quiet. In certain light their thick bark looks like cinnamon colored velvet; my favorite color! The hike down Congress Trail made it more than worth the doubling back drive to see them in these parks.
There is much more to these parks than just the giant sequoias as we discovered when we hiked around an area known as Hospital Rock. This was the location of a large prehistoric Monachi Indian village with pictographs, grinding stones and breath-taking canyon/river scenery. These people were the premier tribe of the Kings Canyon/Sequoia area and were hunter-gathers dependent on the abundant acorns of the western foothill region of the parks. We found the canyons and sheer cliff walls reminiscent of Yosemite because they are all of the same geological period and uplift formations. These two parks have elevation extremes from 1500 feet in the western foothills to Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states at 14,491 feet on the eastern border.
Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks coming up next.
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