Sequoia and Kings Canyon

We are finally putting our Walmart camping gear into use.  We are pretty successful with pitching the tent, but we do find one technical glitch.  We purchased a double blow up mattress and this does not fit through the front door of the tent!

Stuart the engineer solves the problem by driving the car right up to the tent and using the 12v pump to blow up the mattress whilst inside the tent!

 We then head to see the Sequoia  trees.  I don't think that I have the words, and the photos certainly don't do justice to the absolute magnificence of the trees.  It's a long time since a sight has made me gasp out loud with its sheer beauty, but that happened when I saw the trees. Stuart and I were both blown away by the immense majesty of the trees.

Here are a few photos that try to show the scale of the trees

Sequoia is an active bear area, and they are very strict about keeping all food in bear proof containers, even toiletries must be kept in the containers.  As I put my mosquito anti-itch cream in the container after slathering myself in it, I wondered if the human smell would outweigh the potential food smell to a bear.  After two days without a shower I suspect that this would be the case!

We didn't really expect to see bears, so when one casually walked past the most popular tourist spot in the park (the General Sherman tree) we were amazed.  There were around 100 people at the tree. And the bear just strolled by

Later that day we went on a meadow walk.  There are a few beautiful meadows right in the heart of the forests, and Stuart called me over to see a deer.

I said that has awfully, shaggy hair, for a deer.

The "deer" lifts it's head out of the grass

And very round ears, for a deer

And a very snouty nose, for a deer

And aren't we standing a bit close to that Bear!

Even later that evening (we seem to have very long days at the moment, generally starting at sunrise).  We decided to climb Moro Rock, not as scary as Angels Landing,and certainly not as challenging, but it was an interesting climb, and I made it too!

That night we finally ate at 10pm!

Very early next day, before anyone else was up, we started our day with a walk round the Giant's trail.  It was a popular walk, that we hadn't had time to fit it in the day before.  It was just after sunrise, so we were the only ones on the trail, huge sequoias surrounding a beautiful meadow.

Suddenly Stuart stops and tells me to look behind and to my right, we have just walked past a mummy bear and three baby bears!!

We spend ages watching them.  The baby bears are being really playful, but whenever one of them gets spooked they shoot up a tree as fast as they can, which they manage very well.  But when they return to the ground they shuffle backwards awkwardly down the tree, as if they haven't quite mastered this technique yet.

We have eventually moved to one of the trail benches to sit and enjoy the show, when the baby bears decide to get on the path and head towards us.  Mama bear dutifully follows.  We realise that this will put us in an awkward position and head further round the trail.

We must have spent an hour watching this most magical show before anyone else shows up, and when someone does it is a ranger, who then goes away and returns with three other rangers, so we realise we have been very privileged to watch these beautiful bears.

We reluctantly leave and make our way to Kings Canyon, which I was expecting to be like Grand Canyon, but isn't at all.  The drive there is spectacular, and meanders down from the top of the canyon to the river level.  

We drive all the way to the end of the canyon, and take a short walk around one of the meadows to be treated to yet another spectacular site.

These two Parks have been an absolute joy, probably our favourite part of the trip so far.