Sequoia National Park

Jill's Journal: We’re not “tree huggers” by any stretch of the imagination, but when in Rome…!

In a random grove in Central California’s Sequoia National Park along the Generals Highway (the twisty road that connects Sequoia with Kings Canyon), we spotted a few unfenced Giant Sequoia trees and couldn’t resist seeing these gentle giants close up.

“The Pacific Coast…is the paradise of conifers. Here nearly all of them are giants, and display a beauty and magnificence unknown elsewhere.”
–John Muir, 1901

Our day in Sequoia began at Three Rivers, the closest town to the entrance of the national park. This picture is actually a shout-out to our brother-in-law, Adam, who was born in this cute little town in the middle of nowhere.

Established in 1890, Sequoia is America’s second-oldest national park after Yellowstone. This welcome sign has been here since the 1930s, when it was made by a Civilian Conservation Corps worker from Arkansas.

Tunnel Rock, a huge “balanced” granite boulder under which the road into Sequoia once led, greets visitors soon after Sequoia’s main entrance. The road now bypasses the rock.

Our girls love places like this. I just couldn't resist sharing this picture.

One of our main stops in Sequoia had nothing to do with big trees. It was a hike up Moro Rock, a large granite dome, which offers a beautiful view of the Great Western Divide from the top. I *think* this is Moro Rock from quite a distance away.

The steep, narrow trail to the top features over 350 steps and is not for the faint of heart. Wooden steps were first put in place in 1917 and replaced with concrete in 1931.

The top! Even at only 6,725 feet, it feels like the top of the world.

Why is going down so much easier?

Mama bear and her cub! Seeing this pair was a serendipitous moment for Rob and Rob alone. I was in the midst of taking all three girls to the restroom after our Moro Rock climb while Rob retrieved our car from a quarter-mile away. It seemed to take an unusually long time for Rob to return and the girls and I were so excited to hear he’d spent 10 minutes watching these bears. Rob has video of the mama tearing apart a piece of a fallen tree to eat the bugs inside while the baby capered around. So very, very awesome.

The closest the girls and I got to any significant wildlife in Sequoia was this deer (because I don’t think squirrels quite count).

Of course the main attraction in Sequoia is the Giant Forest. Look at the trunk of an average tree (in the foreground) compared to a Giant Sequoia in the background. It’s a humbling experience walking among the land of giants.

From a tremendous distance away, one can spot the General Sherman Tree. This is the world’s largest tree by volume. It’s located twenty-seven miles south of the General Grant Tree we’d seen in Kings Canyon.

The girls are standing near the base of the tree. I backed up as far as possible and still couldn’t fit the entire tree in the frame while remaining close enough to actually spot them in the picture. Although the General Sherman Tree is not the tallest or the widest tree in the world, it is still considered the largest living tree on earth due to its volume and that was a hard thing to explain to them. At about 2,100 years old and as tall as the Statue of Liberty, it is believed to weigh 2.7 million pounds, containing more wood in its trunk than any other tree. Interestingly, the top of the Sherman Tree is dead but that doesn’t stop this Giant Sequoia from continuing to grow wider at the trunk. The General Sherman Tree adds enough wood each year to make the equivalent of a 60-foot-tall tree measuring one foot in diameter.

The tree was named in 1879 for the Civil War’s General William T. Sherman, hero according to the North and demon according to the South. (His destruction of a large swath of the Confederacy during his “March to the Sea” was particularly brutal.) A six-foot-tall human looking up at the Sherman Tree is the equivalent of a mouse looking up at a six-foot-tall man. These random guys to the left of the tree base (sorry folks!) looked about six feet tall. Do we really seem that big and intimidating to a mouse?

Farewell, Sequoia. This was far from our favorite national park, but we still had a pretty darn nice time. Such a marvelous country we have.

Oasis in the Desert

Jill's Journal: Doesn’t the thought of an oasis in the desert conjure up images of some exotic foreign spot, perhaps in Arabia or the Sahara? And, of course, the additional image of a weary, parched traveler desperately crawling toward it in a last-ditch effort for a drink of life-sustaining water?

Much to our surprise, we found there’s a place near Thousand Palms, right here in California, which boasts not one, but two oases (and although it was hotter than Hades, we didn’t even have to crawl, completely parched, to get there).

A visit to the Coachella Valley Preserve starts seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with a dusty parking lot and a tiny visitor’s center. And then, a few steps beyond the visitor’s center, one is thrust into the Thousand Palms Oasis. The native fan palm trees are amazing and absolutely huge – can you spot the girls in the photo above for a comparison of their size?

It almost feels like a jungle, especially with the vast community of birds calling it home and constantly “talking” and flying about. But wait. One doesn’t have the full effect of an oasis yet.

To truly appreciate an oasis, one must first hike through desert that looks like this (in blazing heat, of course).

And this. Can you see the next oasis in the distance, that group of trees?

Dripping with sweat, we annihilated several bottles of water on the way. There were plenty of lizards to spot too, by far the girls’ favorite part of the hike.

Almost there! Madelyn triumphantly rested in the shade for a few moments while waiting for her sisters to catch up. She’s our champion hiker.

And then we were rewarded with this: McCallum Oasis. It’s smaller than the first one, but absolutely gorgeous with a stunning natural pond. The clear, strikingly green water is an astounding feast for the eyes given the desert surroundings. An oasis has an almost otherworldly feel in a hot desert. They’re 20 to 30 degrees cooler than open desert, have a cool breeze, and are so lush. What an amazing respite and contrast to the desert all around.

What is the cause of these oases in the desert? The answer is simple but perhaps unsettling. In this case, the oases are clustered on a branch of the massive San Andreas Fault, cause of so many earthquakes. The fault creates an underground dam; the water surfaces where gaps in the earth’s plates force the water up in the form of springs. Voila! An oasis. The fan palms need wet soil to survive.

Although it was only two or 2 1/2 miles long and hotter than blazes, this was seriously one of my favorite hikes we’ve ever done because it was so unique and the reward so beautiful.