2017 - California Day 8 (King's Canyon National Park)

Saturday, September 16, 2017. Today, we leave Sequoia National Park and travel through King's Canyon National Park and continue our way to El Portal, our stop the next few days for Yosemite National Park.

Montecito Lodge Sequoia breakfast

Montecito Sequoia Lodge includes a buffet breakfast which was quite good. It is a shame that we didn't get to stay here one more day, but it is probably for the best since Yosemite is 3 hours away.

Grizzly Falls

Grizzly Falls is our first stop of the day and it is a short 5 minute walk to see the falls, they are quite nice. We are still in Sequoia National Forest at this time.

Zumwalt Meadow

Zumwalt Meadow is our main stop at King's Canyon, supposedly the most popular place, which also happens to be at the end of the line. The trail itself is not very long at 1.5 miles to do a full loop and is a short walk from the parking lot. We started at 11:15am and finished at 12:30pm, roughly 1 hour, 15 minutes to do the loop and take pictures.

Zumwalt Meadow

We did really enjoy the meadow, it is quite pretty there and we lucked out and saw some bear cubs playing in the meadow. We didn't get any good pictures of it though since they were pretty far away and moving too much. Pretty exciting since we have never seen bears in the wild before.

Grant Tree Trail - Inside the fallen tree

Made it to the Grant Tree Trail at 1:45pm. Actually, quite a neat walk although it is very busy here. We did notice that there were tour buses here, so it did get quite busy. There is even a tree that fell over that you can walk through! We spent about 45 minutes here. Make sure to see the General Grant tree. We saw it from afar and I thought it wasn't the correct one, should have listened to Allison.

Happy Burger

Drove out of King's Canyon and made it to Happy Burger in Mariposa for dinner which is a local quick burger/sandwich joint. Oh man, this place had a burger that I never thought of, they use garlic bread as the bread! Your hands get so greasy, but man, they were delicious and reasonably priced as well at roughly $10 for a sandwich and side.

Made it to Cedar Lodge in El Portal and called it a night. Tomorrow, we head into Yosemite National Park.

2017 - California Day 7 (Sequoia National Park)

Friday September 15, 2017. Today, we leave Tulare and travel through Sequoia National Park for the day and we will be staying at the Montecito Sequoia Lodge.

Sequoia National Park - Yup, that's the trunk of a fallen tree

Quality Inn did have breakfast which was the usual breakfast that I expect from this chain.

Quality Inn Breakfast

Sequoia National Park is the park in California that has the famous Sequoia trees which are the species of trees that are the largest in the world. Prior to getting here, we noticed that there were a lot of farms here where I assume most of the fruits and vegetables we get are grown. It is really odd to see desert and then just vast greenery.

California orange trees?

We paid for the annual pass which cost us $80 for a year, good for all the national sites in USA and hopefully we make our money back. Going by the places we will visit, Sequoia & Kings Canyon costs $30, Yosemite costs $30, so we only had to visit one more place to make our money back. The card is good for a vehicle (admission is by vehicle, not by person at least for these parks).

Me in between Sequoias

We drove in and I was shocked when I saw the first Sequoia tree. Allison told me to calm down since there would be lots of them, but I still had to stop and take some pictures and she was right, there are lots of them here. Little did I know that the ones that I see at the beginning, aren't even the big ones!

Sequoia National Park - Tunnel Log

Sequoia National Park - Deer!

Tunnel Log is the first site (we saw Hospital Rock, but I don't think it is worth the stop) and it is a fallen Sequoia tree that is so large, you can actually drive through it! There were lots of people here waiting to take pictures of it and people to drive through and record it, so it did take some time. Your wait depends on what you want to do and how many people happen to be there.

Sequoia National Park - Moro Rock in the background

Sequoia National Park - Moro Rock Trail base

Sequoia National Park - Moro Rock top

Moro Rock is next and it is a good hike for a nice view that is just over 7,000 ft above sea level. It is a short 15 minute hike if you are worried.

Yup, that tree is bigger than the Statue of Liberty.

Stopped by the Giant Tree Museum which is home to the Sentinel, one of the largest sequoias that they have here. Inside the museum is a diagram that compares the size of the sequoia to things like a rocket ship and the Statue of Liberty to give you an idea of how large the trees are.

Sequoia National Park - General Sherman

Next up, the General Sherman! The largest living tree by volume in the world! Apparently there are trees that are taller, older, and wider than the Sherman, but it made it no less impressive. It is over 270 ft tall and 36 ft wide. When you see it, it is absolutely ridiculous that something this large could exist.

Sequoia National Park - Tokopah Falls

Tokopah Falls Trail is next and we started at 3:30pm, making it to the waterfall at 4:40pm, and finally finishing at 5:25pm. Meaning it too us roughly 2 hours round trip. Your duration is dependent on your speed and what you are interested in taking pictures in.

Tokopah was our final stop for the day, so we headed to the hotel next, Montecito Sequoia which we were both pretty excited for. Your stay includes a buffet dinner as well as a buffet breakfast. If you stay more than one day, buffet lunch is also included with your stay!

Montecito Sequoia Lodge - buffet dinner menu

Montecito Sequoia Lodge - buffet dinner

With dinner finished, we unloaded and called it a day. Tomorrow, we head through King's Canyon and drive to our hotel, Cedar Lodge, located just outside of Yosemite National Park.