We fell in love with Sequoia National Park. How not to feel small and insignificant in front of these giants and ancient trees? After the craziness of Los Angeles, the return to nature was lot of pleasure and a breath of fresh air. Very fresh.
Tuesday, December 13rd, 2022
To fix the roof rack, we have to go to Los Angeles. It's a 4 hour detour South, to the heat and the palm trees. To the big city. Los Angeles is a city like we have never seen before. Huge. Sprawling. Overcrowded. Frenetic. Driving in LA is a pleasure for no one. When driving on a 2 x 6 lane highway, early afternoon on a Tuesday and still stuck in endless traffic jams, it's not fun. It's not fun at all.
At Front Runner, we are received rather coldly. We can't have a quick check of our rack to make sure that there are no other damages but the brocken slide. We pick up our parts and leave quickly to the nearest Home Depot. We take off all the accessories fixed on the rack, except for the tent. With a mallet, we manage to remove the broken slide and one of the cross bars which is slightly bent. We install the new bars. We fix our accessories back. It takes us 3 hours.
We now have to go at OVS to replace the awning canvas that tore and is still under warranty. The problem is that OVS is on the other side of the city. Of Los Angeles! So began two hours of traffic jams to travel 50 kilometers... At OVS, nobody seems to know we're coming, but as it's late, they give us a new canvas without even checking our warranty. It's late. We are exhausted and we settle on the parking lot of Walmart. But, two hours later, the place doesn't suit us anymore. Too much traffic. Too many people. Too much noise. We drive 45 minutes to go out of the city and to sleep at the edge of a road, where it's much quieter. Well almost, because the winding road is a playground for wild rally...
Wednesday, December 14th
We don't feel like driving through LA again, but we can't miss the game! The World Cup's semi-final! We find a Biergarten. We are alone and we ask the manager if he can turn on the TV's sound rather than the music 😁 We eat American burritos watching the match and we celebrate alone the victory. We're in final! 🥳🥳 Our joy quickly fades away in the car, as we spend endless hours getting out of LA. Traffic jam, traffic jam, traffic jam. Even the 8 lanes on either side of the highway can't help it. Once out of the city, we drive as far as we can from LA. But we still sleep in a Walmart parking lot. This time, the place is quieter and we stay there for the night.
Thursday, December 15th
To go to Sequoia National Park, we drive along plains where orchards stretch as far as the eye can see: mandarin trees, lemon trees, olive trees, apple trees, vineyards. Little by little, the agricultural plains give way to rolling countryside. The Sierra Nevada. It's then mountainous landscapes of meadows and pastures. And then forests of chestnut trees. We gain altitude, but the weather remains good. We picnic in the sun while preparing our excursion in the park. As expected, some roads are closed for the season. We also have to carry chains... The rangers don't know JP! Who needs chains on a 4WD with snow tires? 🤪 We drive on the Generals Highway, the park road. The hairpin bends are tight. At 2,000 meters above sea level, snow appears and we see our first giant sequoias. Wow!
We go for a short hike among the giants. We feel so tiny! They are beautiful, immense. We can barely see the top of it. Among all the giants, the most voluminous of all is the General Sherman. It's 2,200 years old! When they reach maturity, sequoias stop growing. They only grow wider. The bark is fire resistant and the branches are so high that sequoias are not very vulnerable to fires. It's a good thing, because these trees are so old that most of them have experienced several fires. We can sometimes see the scars.
The road to Tunnel Log, one of the most emblematic places of the park, is closed. We go by foot. It's a 3 kilometers walk in the snow. The road winds under a sequoia that fell in 1937.
We keep walking to Moro Rock. In summer, we can climb to the top with 400 steps. Today, there are no steps, only snow. We climb with caution to the first viewpoint. We can't go higher as the path is now frozen and it would be too dangerous.
Friday, December 16th
Direction another part of Sequoia National Park. The road to the park is closed, so we have to go back down into the valley and access it by another road. It takes us deeper and deeper into the valley, higher and higher into the mountains, to the places where the snow doesn't melt anymore and where the sequoias are hiding. We immediately go for a short hike among the trees. Here, giant among giants, stands The General Grant Tree. This giant sequoia is 1,700 years old and 82 meters high.
We then drive the only road of the park still open to go to Hume Lake. The lake is partially frozen, we would not venture on it yet! There is lot of snow. After a delicious lunch in the snow, we go and drive the Jeep in the snowy paths. JP loves the snow, he is from Quebec! 😀
In the late afternoon, we leave the park to find a spot for the night. There are lot of Forest Roads around the park, it's very convenient! We settle down in front of the view, to enjoy it while the night falls 😛 Tomorrow, we go back down from the mountains to the city, because we have to find a place to watch the World Cup Final, France vs Argentina, in a bar at... 7 am!
1 commentaire
Salut les jeunes
Nous revoilà en voyage a profiter de vos belles images parmi les géants de la terre.
Merci et bonne continuation.
Bisous.
Mamie