The drive out to King's Canyon from here is a good distance and up some winding mountain sides. We finally reach the park, get through the ranger station and head on in. On our way in we stop at the first pull off, Big Stump, to use the bathrooms. On our way in we see the first of the massive redwoods on the side of the road and they are still as majestic as I remember them from our last trip up the coast. We marvel at the stump and the tree for a bit before packing back into the van and heading off the visitor center here to attempt to get some additions to our growing collections. Unfortunately, the store is closed for another half our when we arrive so we decided to move on and stop by on our return so we head to the General Grant Tree.
The General Grant Tree is the second largest tree in the world according to the map. When you pull into the parking area for this tree, you are greeted by a bunch of different stands of the redwoods. They are all impressively large and have this rich red color to their trunks. It's amazing. We hike a small trail and are shown a picture of a fallen log from 1900 out in front of the log today and it appears to have barely changed. You even get to go inside the log which apparently used to be a place where people would shelter in the past. There is also a sign in front of stump that informs you that this tree was cut down to be shipped back for display at a fair back east. They broke it down and shipped it in pieces to be reassembled when it arrived and to make it more manageable, they only shipped the outer section. When it was reconstructed for the fair, it was actually rejected as being the "California Hoax" as it was believed that no tree could be this massive. If only they could have seen the whole thing! We continue on and are eventually greeted by the General Grant Tree and man is this tree huge! It's truly amazing that something could grow to this scale. We are also shown these delicate red plants with white flowers that we later discover are pinedrops. They are very pretty as well and the contrast in size is amusing.
We move from here towards Road's End in heart of Kings Canyon. As we pull back onto the main road though, our good friend tire pressure light came back on. Of course, while we are in the middle of nowhere here. We continue on the path expecting that we will be able to get some air at some point but there doesn't appear to be anything on the map. To get to the canyon, you need to come down off the high mountain, around 7000', that you were on previously and this takes a very long time and a lot of winding around the cliff walls. Eventually we begin seeing the little river that runs through the canyon and enjoying the view of it running through the little rapids. At more than one point there are people that have pulled out to go wade in the river or go fishing, for the parts where we were not in the park. We decide we will give that a shot if we find a spot available somewhere. At one point there was, according to Courtney since I was driving and not looking around much, a couple with the woman sunning on one of the rocks directly, no towel under her or anything. I cannot imagine how how that must be. There's a lot more driving and views but nothing big to report expect for a bunch of signs indicating that bears are very active here. Of course we see no bears but maybe that's a blessing. We do find a spot where there is one other family in the river but we have a different area we can go down to the bank at so we go and wade into the river. The water is COLD but refreshing since it's so warm out. There are bees around part of the river bank for reasons I don't know but we are able to avoid them and enjoy ourselves for a bit. The number of bees and wasps is increasing on the bank and we decide to bail before there's no safe way out of the river. We head back out of the canyon.
We reach the gift shop in the visitor center again and this time it's open. I unload everyone out since there's not parking right now and drive out to get a spot. As I loop back, someone immediately in front of the shop left so I got to park closer than when I dropped them off! I call Gideon over to collect some recycling and head over to the bin to dispose of it. While we fight witht he bear-proof trash I see a gray squirrel run up behind the bin but I never see it leave. When we leave to go in the shop I go around back of the bin expecting to see a startled squirrel but there is nothing there. This guy has performed a disappearing act! I look more closely and I see about two inches of tail hanging out from under the bin. Tricky! We head into the shop and do our thing before heading out down General's Highway.
The drive is great with a lot of amazing trees and views. Part of the way down we run across a lodge with a gas station and air pump so we top off the tires and head on our way with one less light shining at us. We cross the line into Sequoia and continue our drive towards the General Sherman Tree. Very quickly we are greeted by the sign for "Big Baldy Trail". I'm sure that you know that the photo op for this was not passed up. You can undoubtedly find the results of this in Abby and/or Court's blogs or photos. We realize after a short bit that we aren't going to make it there without going to visit a bathroom. We pull into the visitor center here and find that it's closed and there is only a pair of port-a-potties. We decide to see if the market has bathrooms which it does! It also has its own small gift shop which we have to shop in because Sequoia is different than King's Canyon after all. We all pile back in the car after emptying out and loading up and head on to the next big tree.
We reach the parking area for General Sherman and it is pretty busy here but we managed to get a good parking spot easily and started walking down the path towards the tree. It's an okay walk down but one can't help but remember that we are going to need to walk this back uphill afterwards. We eventually get to the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world, and it is truly massive. According to the plaque there it is over 2200 years old as well which is also mind boggling. After getting some pictures and views of the tree, we decide to start out climb. Man it is much harder than I would have expected. I'll blame the altitude and grade rather than me just being out of shape and not prepared.
We continue to drive out of the park from here and it is yet another winding road as we decend from the heights that we were at. At one point there was a deer eating at the brush on the inside of one of the hairpins which was cute. Since it was on a curve though, it wasn't safe for pictures, sorry. We eventually fall in line with a few other cars that are leaving and continue down the mountain. At one point the lead car pulls over in a turnout to let the rest of the cars go by. There are three of us in line behind them. After the first two cars go by they start to pull out without even looking and almost run into us. We manage to avoid an accident and he keeps driving along in front of us like nothing ever happened. They continue to drive erratically and I'm honestly not sure what is going on with them. Eventually they pull off into some lodge or another and I am greatly relieved. We continue down the highway towards the hotel for the night and eventually see a cloud of greenish-gray dust and out of the dust comes this jacked up pick up truck that again doesn't look when it starts to head into the road but this time manages to stop and I progress past them. As we crest the hill after this we see an accident with a car half way up a hill on the side of the road, no clue how it got there. Starting to feel like the fates are conspiring against us but we make it out of the mountains and into the town for the night without incident.
We had ordered Domino's again since it was later in the afternoon and we needed to get laundry done. When we arrived in the town, it was clear that the food wouldn't be ready yet so we went to a auto parts shop and bought a small compressor that works in the cigarette lighter so that we won't be as stranded when the tire goes low again and replacement stem caps since we were missing one previously. We then head to Domino's and picked up our food after some additional waiting and headed to the hotel. After check in and starting to get organized we go down to start laundry. Someone has one of the dryers running but nothing in the washers so we do two loads expecting to be able to juggle things around a bit. After eating dinner, Abby and I go down to move the laundry around and someone has started another load in one of the dryers. Strange but we only had one more load to do so we moved one washer load into the free dryer and started the next washer load. Each time we head into this room, it feels more and more like a sauna than before. It's crazy hot in here and damp. We eventually get everything shuffled through the washers and dryers but due to that one dryer being used in such a strange manner, it took longer than we wanted. Off to bed for the night to start Route 6 tomorrow.