Sequoia National Park 24.9.18

The road from Lake Isabella to Sequoia National Park led us through a beautiful valley to Bakersfield and from there to Visalia, and directly to the main entrance of Kings Canyon and Sequoia parks. Here we paid $35 to access the park roads. The ticket is also valid for 7 days for those who want to visit the park longer or more often.

It takes about 2 hours of continuous uphill driving, first through a section of Kings Canyon Park (both parks are adjacent), until you finally see the first gigantic sequoias.

Of course, our route also took us directly to the General Sherman Tree, the most powerful tree in the world with a circumference of an incredible 31 meters 😱 Unfortunately, there were too many people here as well, so the chances of seeing a bear in this area were close to zero. But we still went off the short photo routes onto a small trail, where it was much quieter and we saw many squirrels 🐿 (squirrels, slightly larger and darker than our native species). And of course, we saw a lot of the giant sequoias, some of which had fire damage (these trees can survive even with fire and heat damage). We also found several of the giant pine cones.

After enjoying the tranquility among the giant trees for about 1.5 hours, we made our way back to the car, as the drive back to our hotel in Visalia would take a few more hours.

The descent was sometimes pure thrill, as the Americans are apparently very relaxed about road safety in the mountains.

We drove down what felt like a thousand bends, always with a view of sometimes extreme abysses next to us without the slightest protection in the form of a guardrail or wall. Most of the time, it was......nothing. It can make you quite queasy, and you wonder if someone has ever fallen down there 😬 Extreme concentration is definitely required.....

The next day, we would venture on steep roads to another national park. Ff.