Given that this was our final fall break with Alex at home, we decided we simply had to take a trip, despite the fact that Lara and I had recently returned from Greenland. We gave Alex the chance to pick, which was nearly certain to tie our travel plans to football. We settled on Los Angeles, where we could see the Broncos play the Chargers, and cross off our final two California national parks.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon and left ourselves just enough time to take in a SoFi Stadium tour. We managed to navigate the sign-in process (seriously!) and had about a 45 minute tour through the concourses and VIP suites, and wrapping up with a chance to toss a football on the field.
We had hoped to try Griffith Observatory again, since we got rained out on our previous trip to LA, but somewhere during the typical slog through LA traffic, the clouds rolled in again and we knew the observatory would be socked in. We called an audible and headed for the Hollywood Hills to see if we could catch the Hollywood sign from the Lake Hollywood Park. Cliche, to be sure, but hey, when in Rome…
Sunday was game day. Alex wanted to head to the stadium early to try to get some pics of the coaches and players before the game. Unfortunately, stadium rules thwarted us twice. No cameras with detachable lenses allowed, and our tickets would not allow us to access the lower bowl, even 90 minutes before game time. At least we had time for a lunch before kickoff! After the game we picked up our car and headed for Visalia, our base for the next 2 days.
Monday was overcast and forecast for rain much of the day. We flipped a coin and chose to go to Sequoia. I think that turned out to be the right choice. The clouds messed with the view, for sure, but they also presented some excellent photography opportunities with the mist rolling among the giant trees.
We hiked out to see Tokopah Falls, but the California drought had pinched off the water flow earlier this summer. The falls were just a trickle. The trail still provided some excellent scenery in unique cloudy conditions, so we were happy with our choice. We ate our picnic lunch in the car to stay out of the rain, and then headed down to Giant Forest to see the Sherman Tree, which is known as the largest tree – by volume – in the world. No matter how many times you see them, giant sequoias never fail to impress.
We had our rain gear, so we decided to hike the Congress Trail while we were here. This was another couple of miles winding through the huge trees. It’s definitely worth the effort. As per usual, we couldn’t just leave it there. We decided on one more hike to see “Tharp’s Log”, where a frontiersman named Tharp had made a home in a fallen sequoia trunk in the late 1800’s. The dwelling wasn’t overly impressive, but it was another great hike through the trees. We wound our way down the mountain and back to Visalia for the night, tired and happy.
We got up early the next morning to make our way to King’s Canyon, just north of Sequoia. The clouds had cleared by this point, and we were left with pristine blue skies and a crisp California fall day. Great hiking weather, but not the best photo opportunities.
We first hiked the Don Cecil trail to Sheep Creek Cascades, which was a short, but relatively steep hike up the canyon wall. Then we wound our way to the “Road’s End”, where we hiked along the 4 mile Kanawyer Loop on the canyon floor. This was a pretty easy route that again wound through the big trees on either side of the river. We stopped at several scenic sites on the way out, including the short Roaring River Falls overlook trail and the Grizzly Falls picnic area. Our last stop was one more stand of giant trees, the Grant Grove.
This is the home of the General Grant tree, which has the largest diameter trunk of any tree in the world. Suffice it to say, there are lots of big trees in this area. This is a crowded spot, like the Sherman Tree trail in Sequoia, but it is a must see. These trees are amazing, and hopefully they will be around for another 1000 years, but that isn’t certain at this point.
That was the end of this brief trip. We very much enjoyed both parks. I think Sequoia and it’s backcountry are worth more in-depth exploring some day, but for now, it’s back to the real world.
