Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks 8-5-2010

Because we like to go big, on our way home from Big Bear, and after making the drive a couple of days earlier to Joshua Tree National Park, we made a detour through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We started with Sequoia.

This is the top of a sequoia

Same sequoia, different perspective

looking up

We visited 5 national parks this summer and with the exception of Joshua Tree, road work was going on in all of them.

Abby took as many pictures with her camera as I did with ours (That's a lot.) And that's not even counting all the sideways videos she took of Meghan in the car. The camera was a birthday present and on an earlier trip to Yosemite (which will be blogged about eventually) her penchant for using her birthday present earned her the trail name Digicam. By the way, the tree in the background is called The Sentinel.

This is on top of Moro Rock, which was a really fun side trip and one of the coolest parts of our trip (for me at least). Although, if you can tell how I'm gripping Meghan's arm, it also made me pretty nervous.

Speaking of nervous, here's Nana pretending to be afraid of heights

The hike up and down Moro Rock isn't too long, but it's steep. It's a good leg workout.

 

This is General Sherman

The kids and I pose with General Sherman

This sequioa wasn't named after a civil war general, but the kids posed in front of it anyway.

We didn't get a very good picture, but there was a bear in a meadow on the side of the road

Not too much longer after seeing the bear, we saw this coyote crossing the road.

This is me and Lennon inside a section of a fallen sequioa.

Cute family portrait in front of General Grant.

Then we made our way to Kings Canyon.

This is the south fork of the Kings River. You follow it on the way into the Park.

I kept thinking that the river looked super fishable. I was also starting to get anxious because I had planned to do some serious fishing at Big Bear, but things didn't work out for me. I finally couldn't stand it and had to pull over and try it out. By the way, not to brag or anything, but when I was getting my stuff ready to go a guy drove by to ask me if I had caught anything. He told me he had been fishing along the river all day without catching anything. After he left, I walked down to the river, made two bad casts and on the third cast put my lure right where I wanted it and BAM. 

Kings River brown trout

Warning: don't try to recline on top of this sign. It's not very stable.  (I've, umm, heard that.)

If Honda had an advertisement like this, I would have accepted Minivans years ago.

Knapp's cabin. (Don't I look like I belong.)

Roaring River Falls

All along the trail next to the river there were these signs that said "Danger: No Swimming" and showed a hand sticking out of the water as if someone were drowning. The signs really freaked Meghan out.

Spider Len

The signs didn't seem to have the same effect on Lennon, who typically prefers to walk on rocks and boulders rather than on the trail (even if the rocks are slippery and next to a quickly flowing river with danger signs posted beside it--there may have been some parental yelling during this hike).

Lennon is sliding down the steep rock, I'm waiting to catch him, and Abby's documenting it.

Here's a nice picture of the water fall

Both Sequoia and Kings Canyon were really cool, but there's a lot more to see. Kings Canyon especially is set up for backpacking. There is only one road that goes into it and it doesn't go very far. I'm sensing a future adventure.