Sequoia National Park was the first stop on our vacation this summer; a sort of vacation that sports our increasingly common habit of hopping from one national park to the next, fitting as many as we can into one or two week segments. Last year, it was Utah (and we made it to all 5 of Utah's NPs in two weeks) and this year: southern/central California, Utah and Northern Arizona.

We set off early morning, grabbing bagels and coffee on our way out of Phoenix, and driving the 9+ hours from Phoenix to a car campsite in Sequoia NP. There we picked up beer and smores for a nice relaxing night by the campfire.

...which quickly devolved into me burning the crap out of my marshmallows....

Also, notice the big metal boxes near every campsite...

This was the beginning of our hyper-awareness of bears. Sequoia and Yosemite NPs have tons of bears and every campsite comes with bear-proof containers, even back-country campsites (bear-proof because their huge paws cannot fit into the slots that are the release mechanisms for the door -- not because they cannot smell what is inside, I'm sure). More on that later though.

Our trail the next morning took us through the Giant Sequoia Forest: a large swath of red-barked trees with huge roots. Some looked like they had grown beside each other like conjoined twins and been cut in two right down the middle.

We hiked swiftly through this forest and began climbing in elevation towards the mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. The sites were breathtaking; the weather was perfect; and there was wildlife at every turn.

Eagle View overlook on the valley floor -- just gorgeous!

We anticipated for this particular hike to make it approximately nine miles before we could get to a place with a decent campsite. But setting a swift pace, we made it eleven miles to a fork in the trail, fording a few streams (not too wide) in the process, where a small High Sierra Camp was to be setup for the late summer months. There was a backcountry campground near the High Sierra Camp that we could camp in, but the High Sierra Camp itself was not in commission yet. Plus, those camps are a pretty penny for anyone willing to pay the price. The tent cabins are located on the mountain-side with excellent views of the valley and the adjacent mountain ranges. Our site was located in some trees with not-so-majestic views right outside; however we were able to walk the short 0.2 miles or so with our camp chairs and whiskey flask and sit in the High Sierra Camp while the sun was setting. We watched the mountains to the east while the sun's rays slowly receded from their majestic faces and various critters rustled behind in the bushes.

We made it back to camp and spent the rest of the evening with our friends, a trio of mule deer, making our canonical backpacker's dinner: Mountain House Lasagna with Meat Sauce (we had so many of those this trip)!

Some of them got quite close! At least they weren't bears...

The hammocks kept us mostly warm for the first night, though I ended up stealing one of Dan's thermal shirts to keep me extra warm. We were actually able to string up our hammocks right next to each other using one common tree for one side and two trees right next to each other for the other side. That was kind of nice :)

The morning brought more deer and a slight chill. We made some coffee and another Mountain House meal and set off for the hike back to the parking lot.

We don't have pictures of it, but I nearly fell into the river while we were filling our camelbacks for the trek out. There were tons of mosquitoes. Tons of them. For most of the trip in fact; so bug repellant became a necessary morning article. Dan and I decided to fill our camelbacks on a rather slippery piece of rock, right down near the river where, not 5 feet away the river cascaded down some more rocks into a white frothy and very turbulent looking pool. The bug spray lid decided it wanted to jump into the pool after I tried to put it back on the container -- really it jumped out of my hands because of the oily spray getting all over my hands -- but it's more fun to anthropomorphize such things...Anyway, I instinctively decided to jump after it because, you know...plastic in the water! I then proceeded to slip rather less than gracefully, landing on my tush and falling feet first into the river. At which point Dan runs after me, getting one of his legs wet as he too almost falls in. But we managed to get ourselves together and out of the water and back onto dry rock. I was soaked up to my waist, but only one of Dan's feet were soaked.

This little guy greeted us on the way back.

It's like he owns that rock or something! "I'm a bear! Rawwwwrr!"

The hike out was nice except for our feet. Turns out both Dan and my boots were not good for this trip, but in different ways. Dan's boots were too new and the heels weren't broken in too well. Mine were too old and were falling apart. The insoles were pretty thin too and my toes grew blisters like nobody's business. All in all, twenty-two miles in two days was pretty intense and it made for a rough start to the hikes in Yosemite....but not too rough *wink*

Sequoiadendron Gigantea & the Sierra Nevadas