The Giant Trees

On an impulse I made reservations to visit the national parks in the southern Sierra Nevada of California: Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon. My favorite, by far, was Sequoia. Yosemite is wonderful but I think you really must go into the back country to appreciate it, because the valley itself is so overcrowded, even in the offseason, as to be an obscenity.

I chose to stay in Visalia, California, for proximity to the Sequoia and Kings Canyon, but at a lower price than the nearer options.

The ascent into the Sierra Nevada.

Sequoia National Park isn't like I thought it would be. It's basically on top of a mountain. I had the impression that the giant redwoods grew at "middle elevations," which I thought meant on gradual slopes. This is incorrect. The Sierra Nevada are high mountains and middle elevations means atop ridges and peaks, just not so high as to be barren and craggy. After entering the park through the foothills, I drove up, up, up to get to the monster trees.

I arrived early enough to park by the Giant Forest Museum. The museum is minimal, but it acts as a locus for visiting the rest of the park. I opted to take a shuttle bus to the General Sherman grove, a regrettable decision. I should have just hiked the distance. The shuttle was overcrowded, annoying, and I was exposed to coughing and sneezing people and got sick the following week.

The groves are perfect, excepting the presence of humans. You gape and tilt your head back looking at the distant canopy over 200 feet above until you feel like you will fall over backwards. The experience is difficult to put into words. The first day I tread the more used trails, some even paved with asphalt, along with the masses. I returned the next day to hike a proper loop and saw fewer people and more wildlife.

Dude, where's my speeder bike?

At some point I started getting Return of the Jedi vibes and imagined racing through the forest atop a speeder bike. It was a disruptive and almost nauseating sensation, a collision of sensory overload and nostalgia. The big trees astonish and overwhelm. We can be grateful for the preservation of the giants but I'd selfishly love to live among them.

I can think of few experiences that have made me as happy as visiting the giant sequoias.