Stop 9: Three Rivers, CA (Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks)

We are here for 3 nights. Three Rivers is located where the three forks of the Kaweah River come together. It apparently got started in the late 1800's as some sort of experiment in Socialism. Now, it's better known as a community of artists. Wikipedia says that William Shatner, Angelica Houston, Harvey Keitel and Robert Blake all have homes here. It seems like a very nice place and the RV park that we're in is beautiful.

We spent our first afternoon here checking out the town and relaxing outside our trailer. We're amazed at the enormous number and variety of birds here.

View from our camp chairs.

One of many, many woodpeckers. It's apparently breeding season so they're all too busy to peck trees (Hurray!).

Another woodpecker.

The swimmin' hole (on the North Fork of the Kaweah River).

North Fork of the Kaweah River

North Fork of the Kaweah River

Some quail crossing the campground.

On our first full day here, we headed for Sequoia National Park. It's a long, winding, steep road through the park to get to the Giant Forest, a 3 square mile grove that holds the majority of the worlds largest trees. "World's largest" seems to be a bit of a subjective term. The tallest trees are Coastal Redwoods. The widest trees are Baobabs. The oldest trees are Great Basin Bristlecones. When they say that the Sequoias are largest, they mean that they are the most massive (some sort of volume measurement).

The tree in the center is the General Sherman, the world's most massive tree (274.9' tall, 32.7' diameter).

General Sherman

General Sherman

Looking up into General Sherman.

General Sherman and Kristen (she's the one who isn't a tree).

Looking up between 2 sequoias.

The Sentinel, the world's 42nd most massive tree (257.6' tall, 25.1' diameter) who keeps track of this stuff?).

Looking up into The Sentinel.

The road divides here and the lanes pass between trees.

On a clear day, you can supposedly see 11 ranges of mountains fading into the distance from this view point. The picture doesn't do it justice. The drop off here was straight down for thousands of feet.

Day 2 was our day to visit Kings Canyon National Park. It abuts Sequoia National Park but is actually in 2 separate pieces. The first, more easily accessible, piece was originally called Grant National Park. It was essentially the Grant Grove of sequoias and not much else. When Congress later created Kings Canyon National Park, they incorporated Grant National Park into it.

As luck would have it, the road into that newer, less accessible, portion of the park opened for the season at noon today. Unfortunately, the trip to the more accessible part of the park took so long that, by the time that we'd had some lunch and seen what there was to see, it was time to head back to our trailer. The 80 winding miles to and from the Kings Canyon portion of the park were out of the question.

We did enjoy the portion of the park that we did see even though the air was full of smoke. They were having some sort of controlled burn today and, in most of the park, it was just choking. Fortunately, the least smoky areas were the areas that we wanted to hike in.

On the loop to the General Grant Tree.

On the loop to the General Grant Tree.

On the loop to the General Grant Tree. It's interesting how lighting has shaped the top of these trees. As soon as they get taller that everything around them, lightning blows off the top.

The map showed a shortcut trail to get back to the beginning of the General Grant Tree loop.The trail passed through the length of this burned out, fallen sequoia.

On the loop to the General Grant Tree.

On the loop to the General Grant Tree.

On the loop to the General Grant Tree.

Tada! The General Grant Tree, the world's 2nd most massive tree and the Nation's Christmas Tree (268.1' high, 34.2' diameter). Note that it's another lightning topped tree.

The burned side of the General Grant Tree.

Another shot of the burned side.

General Grant Tree (looking up at the lightning damage).

On the loop to the General Grant Tree.

Our next stop was the Big Stump. It was a very long downhill trail to the stump and it was hard to not think about the uphill climb back to the car. We saw some really big stumps but I don't think that we ever got to "The" Big Stump.

Huge branch on the trail to the Big Stump.

A big stump (not "The" Big Stump).

That's me on that big stump.

Kristen in front of another big stump (but not "The" Big Stump).

Another shot of that tree with the big branch.

Tomorrow, we're off for Acton, CA (near Palmdale) where we'll stay while we attend our Granddaughter Riley's 1st birthday party. Then we'll be able to really start on our Western Adventure.

-JC-