Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

It was a very gorgeous however very grueling drive for Troy through the mountains. The reward of arriving in the valley was the smell of Oranges and Lemons, such an invigorating smell, we loved our campground! We stayed in the small town of Three Rivers just outside of the parks at Sequoia RV Ranch, very secluded and peaceful, just what Troy needed after the long day of driving.

Everything is a drive through Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks which also includes the Sequoia National Forest/Giant Sequoia National Monument. (At least Lisa shares in some of the driving in the Jeep, haven't gotten her back behind the wheel of the RV yet, think she is scared of it since she "broke" it when she drove it) When you enter into the park the ranger let's you know that you won't see a Sequoia for 45 minutes, we drive a lot! Snow, everywhere is snow! Notice the snow in the background of the picture below, we can't get away from it and we were definitely not dressed for it! It was 80 degrees in the Valley when we left, guess we forgot that we were going up into the mountains, oops! It was 48 degrees in the park! Needless to say we did most of our exploring the first day in the park from the Jeep!

After learning the growth patterns, history of the forest and the road closures within the park at the Giant Forest Museum (very informative, stop if you are ever in the area) we continued on our gorgeous drive through the park. Course with snow comes road closures, we understand that however it was something we did not think about when we took off on this crazy adventure of ours, places that we really wanted to explore are not able to be explored yet due to snow, go figure, it is May, how can there still be so much snow? Next trip will have to be in the summer without the snow to get in our way! However we did have the inside scoop, Brad (Lisa's Brother) worked at Kings Canyon for a Summer and recommended many of the places we explored, thanks Brad!

Wow, these are some really big trees! We visited the General Grant Tree our first day at the Park, majestic, that is the first word that came to us when we saw these trees, especially General Grant and General Sherman. Amazing how tall, wide and old these trees can get. Our next day in the area we relaxed at camp, we needed a day of little or no driving! Back in the park we went on the short hike to check out General Sherman, the world's largest tree. If you look closely you can see Lisa next to the sign and it gives you an idea of how massive this tree really is:

Many of the villages and roads were not open yet due the snow, most planned on opening by Memorial Day Weekend, we were a few weeks too early. However there was a reward for our timing, lot's of run off from the snow in the mountains which meant the waterfalls were in full force, take a look at the picture of Grizzly Falls:

We continued our drive into Kings Canyon to check out Cedar Grove where Brad was stationed when we was an interpertive ranger, though it wasn't open yet we ate lunch by the river and enjoyed the scenery. While eating we were stalked by a local bird looking for his lunch too, sorry, no bird food here! We took a few hikes around the area and came across Roaring River Falls:

We checked out Hume Lake, gorgegous lake, too cold at the moment but that did not keep the kids out that were attending the Christian Camp on the lake, crazy kids! We were hoping to take a shortcut road in the park to get back to Sequioa and make our way to Moro Rock but it was closed. We talked to a few locals and we were told that there still was snow but we might be able to make it, we took the Road Closure, what rebels we are! There was a lot of snow on the road but usually only on one side of the road, no problems at all, we made it through! We made it to Moro Rock, what a climb, 500 steps but the reward was a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains, valley below and all the Sequoia's in the area.