Kings Canyon and Sequoia Trip


June 4, we drove to the Fresno entrance to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park.  That night we stayed at the Azalea Campground near Grant's Grove, and went through the grove the next morning.



Wow.  All I need for this picture is a leprechan costume...

Two notable trees in Grant's Grove -- the "General Grant" tree ... (way in the background)



And the Robert E. Lee tree.



On the 5th, we drove to Kings Canyon.  Here's an overview of a bit of that road....



Yep, that little thread is the road we were about to take.

And a stop at a scenic overlook along the way.



Along this road is Grizzly Falls.



It's very close to the road, maybe 50 yards.



This is our camping spot at Kings Canyon, in the Sheep Creek campground.  We stayed here until June 8.

On June 8, we drove to Sequoia National Park, and stayed at the Lodgepole Campground.

There were a lot of these birds -- Steller's Jays.  They're pretty much like your regular blue jay, just a different color.  (They're darker blue than this picture makes out.)



On June 9, we drove down to Giants Grove for the day.  One really nice hike is a paved trail around Round Medow, which is surrounded by sequoias.  On the day we were there, there were several bears grazing in the medow.  (This picture is zoomed in quite a bit; this bear was a couple hundred yards away.)



Then we turned a corner on the trail....



This picture is not zoomed in.  The bear was maybe 20 feet off the path.  (That's the back of a bench on the edge of the trail in the lower right hand corner of the picture.  The bear was just standing there watching people come walking past the tree, see what's on the other side of the tree, freeze, and start backing up...

On June 10, we hiked out to Tokopa falls.  It's 1.7 miles from the Lodgepole campground.  The ranger at the visitor center said it was pretty flat, not too hard a hike.  Well... it wasn't all that flat, and getting there involved wading across several streams.

But it was worth the trip.  (I'd love to do it again some day when it's sunny.)



Then, on June 11, we drove home.