Sequoia Part TWO

Three Rivers Sequoia was stop number two closer to the south entrance into Sequoia National Park.

This RV park was undoubtedly closer to a small town than the one in King’s Canyon considering we had an actual grocery we could use if needed in lieu of a gas station “grocery” at the last stop ha!  Three Rivers greeted us with a Brewery, Yelp approved Sierra Sandwich’s and Subs shop, a chocolate shop, and MORE hikes… ALL of which we took full advantage.

Since I am still running my online training business, Monday I set up camp at the local coffee shop to get some work done, only to realize they closed at 1 pm, then the office at the RV park closed at 3… that was a bit of a rough go for owning a virtual business, but we (and by we, I mean me) survived and got right back into the woods the next day!

Our first day going into the park from the south was more of a “tourist” stops day of a BUNCH of things we wanted to see. 

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On our way into the park we found “tunnel rock”… so of course, another obligatory photo-op quickly commenced!

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We started the day touring Crystal Cave as Josh was quick to volunteer to be the flashlight man for the group to keep us all in order.  Fun fact, the cave is always between 48-52 degrees F, never higher or lower.  Oh, and the calcite deposits actually sparkle underground, thus the name Crystal Cave.

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After the ½ mile trek down to the cave and then back out, we made a pit stop at the Giant  Forest Museum to learn a bit more about the magnificent giant trees before heading onto see General Sherman, the largest tree known to man by volume… yeah…. he was big.  Mr. Sherman’s base is 37 feet in diameter, and he is just over 280 feet tall with an estimated weight over 1300 TONS… wowza.  I’m going to go ahead and say even if he falls down in the forest and no one is around, that’s going to make one hell of a sound!  

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After General Sherman, we drove Charlie through Tunnel Log for another obligatory photo-op and headed around the corner to Moro Rock.

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Moro Rock is quite the climb, even on the paved stairs, and the views were WORTH it overlooking the Sierra Nevada’s in all directions.  From someone who is ALWAYS cold… that breeze at the top was a life saver after climbing the 350ish steps…  you can see it for yourself with how fab my hair looks.

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About halfway through this day of sightseeing it was settling in that this could be our LAST time in the park which was not a good feeling…. We were quickly falling in love with this place.

An impromptu search on the map and we decided on ONE LAST hike the day after all the touristy stuff to disappear into the trees one more time.  The agenda was to work a bit in the morning at the coffee shop, hit the legendary sandwich shop, hit a 6ish mile hike, and make it back into town just in time to get some local ice cream before they closed at 6.  Everything was going quite smoothly until we missed our turn on our hike… at least twice… as dread set in that we were NOT getting ice cream, our “little last 6 mile walk through the trees” turned into an 8 miler of over 20k steps. 

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Whoops…. Not complaining though, there is just something magical about these trees and I could get lost in them any day of the week and be okay.  Oh, and how did I forget, we saw bear NUMBER THREE on this not-so leisurely stroll.  We definitely held our cool together a little more than last time considering every person we talked to said they had seen a bear as casually as they saw a bunny rabbit in the woods…    

Time to leave the forest for a little while, we have a few days in Fresno to catch our breath before heading over to Big Sur and the Monterey Aquarium before San Francisco is calling our names!

Stay tuned for our Big Sur and Aquarium post next!!!