Three Rivers, California
March 14–16, 2022
March 14–16, 2022
I stayed at the Horse Creek Campground on Lake Kaweah, a few miles down Route 198 from Sequoia National Park. My campsite was spacious and filled with birds and flowers. The dogs and I hiked around the campground and day-use area’s trails, through fields of orange poppies, purple lupines, pink-and-magenta clover, and some yellow flowers and white flowers that I couldn’t identify. The smooth boulders, burbling river, muscular mountains, and flower-filled valleys combined to make a landscape that sometimes resembled more closely my imagined ideas of Switzerland than anything I’d expected of the US.
Then there was Sequoia National Park itself. I really thought I was prepared for the experience of being among those massive trees, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t have been. After the long, steep, winding drive on Generals Highway through the park, gaining over 5000 feet in elevation up to 6400 feet, I rounded a tight bend and suddenly caught sight of my first giant sequoia, and my jaw dropped. I had to pull over and walk up the bank to touch its bark and breath in the cedary essence of the forest. About a mile further up the road, I parked and got out to walk among them. I saw the unfortunately named General Sherman—the largest tree on earth by volume of wood—and gazed endlessly up the thick, strong trunks. They brought tears to my eyes.
A couple days later, I headed into Sequoia National Forest, where the rules are looser and the dogs were allowed to join me on a hike. I did a similar elevation climb on Route 190, but when I neared the spot where my chosen hike was to begin I saw a sign saying that the area was closed to all recreation because of the 2020 Sequoia Complex Fire. I saw evidence of the fire all around me: empty hillsides, blackened tree skeletons all around, and the roadsides covered in wood chips from all the casualties that had been ground up. It was a deeply sad experience, accentuated by the heavy cloud cover that I had driven up into. Everything felt bleak and lonely. I descended the mountain until I reached Camp Nelson, where I drove as close as I could get to the National Forest campground. I parked by the gate closing the road and then walked in. An abandoned campground is slightly eerie and yet luxurious. Who ever gets an entire campground to herself? The dogs and I wandered among the picnic tables, small bridges, and enormous sequoias, in and out of the deeper woods. Yet again, those trees made me cry.
On the drive back down the mountain’s hairpin curves (another sometimes harrowing test of Vincent’s second gear), I was treated to a gleaming sunset that shot through the canyon and turned the cliffs golden orange.
Then there was Sequoia National Park itself. I really thought I was prepared for the experience of being among those massive trees, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t have been. After the long, steep, winding drive on Generals Highway through the park, gaining over 5000 feet in elevation up to 6400 feet, I rounded a tight bend and suddenly caught sight of my first giant sequoia, and my jaw dropped. I had to pull over and walk up the bank to touch its bark and breath in the cedary essence of the forest. About a mile further up the road, I parked and got out to walk among them. I saw the unfortunately named General Sherman—the largest tree on earth by volume of wood—and gazed endlessly up the thick, strong trunks. They brought tears to my eyes.
A couple days later, I headed into Sequoia National Forest, where the rules are looser and the dogs were allowed to join me on a hike. I did a similar elevation climb on Route 190, but when I neared the spot where my chosen hike was to begin I saw a sign saying that the area was closed to all recreation because of the 2020 Sequoia Complex Fire. I saw evidence of the fire all around me: empty hillsides, blackened tree skeletons all around, and the roadsides covered in wood chips from all the casualties that had been ground up. It was a deeply sad experience, accentuated by the heavy cloud cover that I had driven up into. Everything felt bleak and lonely. I descended the mountain until I reached Camp Nelson, where I drove as close as I could get to the National Forest campground. I parked by the gate closing the road and then walked in. An abandoned campground is slightly eerie and yet luxurious. Who ever gets an entire campground to herself? The dogs and I wandered among the picnic tables, small bridges, and enormous sequoias, in and out of the deeper woods. Yet again, those trees made me cry.
On the drive back down the mountain’s hairpin curves (another sometimes harrowing test of Vincent’s second gear), I was treated to a gleaming sunset that shot through the canyon and turned the cliffs golden orange.
