Sequoia National Park

So, to celebrate Jessie's graduation (and give her a much needed break), I took a long weekend from work last week and we headed up to Sequoia National Park for a little camping. We had originally planned on heading up Friday afternoon, but a little car trouble nixed that. No problem though, as we packed up everything Friday night for an early departure the following morning. We left the house bright and early on Saturday, and made it to the southern edge of the park by noon.

For our first day, we were in for quite a temperature shock! We had originally planned on staying at higher elevations, so we packed mostly cold weather clothes. Well, since plans got shuffled around a bit, we ended up camping around 1000' and boy was it hot! It was around 105 degrees when we got there, but luckily it dropped down to around 70 at night. We took a short hike to the nearby stream, ate a delicious pasta dinner, and went to a campfire and learned all about the local (and very active) bear population from one of the park rangers.

Sunday was our first full day in the park. We packed up camp early, and enjoyed a beautiful, slow, and twisty drive up the mountains. Nearly 2 hours later, we reached our first destination: Crystal Cave. Out of the miles of caves that are located within the park, Crystal Cave is the only one open to the public. We took a tour of the cave, which was quite interesting considering that the park generators were down for the day. So, we got a bit of a unique ,unlighted tour and got to do our cave exploring with flashlights!

Inside Crystal Cave. Good thing our flash worked!

After leaving the caves, we continued up another few thousand feet and finally saw our first sequoia grove. It was amazing! Seeing these enormous trees in person was quite an experience, and not one that we will soon forget.

General Sherman, the worlds biggest tree.
(next to Jessie Stuffel, the worlds littlest Lieutenant!)

The second night, we found an awesome campsite tucked away between some huge boulders and a pine grove. We got a nice fire going, and decided to experiment with some foil dinners. Dinner didn't exactly turn out how we planned, a little on the cajun side albeit edible, but the s'mores later on more than made up for it. =)

Campsite, day 2.

On day three, we took our time and enjoyed a great breakfast. Once everything was packed up, we were on the road again, and stopped at a few more sequoia groves to admire these majestic giants. We also made a little detour to hike up Moro Rock. Moro rock is an ancient volcanic dome which has a staircase cut into the side of it. After a healthy hike up approximately 400 stairs, you were rewarded with a fantastic 360 degree view. To the north an west were mountains that make up the continental divide, to the south was a breathtaking view of the valley, and to the west were more pine and sequoia groves.

Southern view from Moro Rock.

After that we had a nice leisurely drive down the mountain side, and made our way back home. Overall it was a fantastic trip, and we would highly recommend this destination as a must see! Natural wonders aside, the National Park Service has done an amazing job at preserving this wilderness while still making it accessible to the public. We were very impressed with the cleanliness of all the facilities, from the visitor centers to the campgrounds. Not an easy task for a park that sees thousands of visitors each year. So if you'd like the chance to see some of these national landmarks yourself, come out and visit before it's too late! (And if you liked these pictures, be sure to click our Shutterfly link on the sidebar where you can find many more!)