First off: let's close the loop: a final update to the road trip route map. When editing the picasa folder of king's canyon pictures I was wondering about my campsites, they somehow didn't make sense. I investigated a little and it turns out I made a mistake on marking them down on the map. This means I also cheated on this post's title: it was actually three parks in four days... but well... Fresno doesn't really count as a park now does it? Like mentioned in the last post: the loop below consists of 7614 miles or 12250 km. Crazy!
The plan for the last day of national parks during this road trip: drive around in Sequoia National Park, see some big trees, and climb Moro rock: a viewpoint at the east of the park. I had booked a motel on the coast for the evening, so that I could spend the rest of the day driving without having to worry about finding a campsite in the dark while being tired (and also to get a shower!).
First on the list: the general Sherman tree. It featured on my beer of the evening before, so of course I would have to see it in real life as well. It is apparently the largest tree in the world (by volume), redwood trees are much higher. The parking lot that leads to the tree is actually a little off from it (due to peak season tourist traffic being very high), but they have used this for an interesting effect: the height of the tree is marked on the path when you descend it, giving some sense of scale. It's too bad that no where in this parks is there a way to get to the canopy of these trees (or I missed it), it'd be interesting to see what they look like there, and also get a sense of scale for how huge they are up there.
The driving in the park consisted of a lot of zig zagging as the parks are very high up in the mountains (that's where Sequoia's grow). An impression of the scale of the trees, and the winding roads in the video below.
Youtube: http://youtu.be/a2cBn_t9D58
There are some very nice hikes in the area where you can walk for hours amongst the big trees. Sadly I didn't have time for this, and actually, after the forest hike in King's Canyon I was actually looking for grand views again more. Moro rock turned out to offer those in an awesome way!
It really is a rock too: the moment you get on the trail you hit a staircase cut out from the granite. This winds itself up the rock along the cliff face, zig-zagging through cracks and below overhangs back and forth to the other side of the rock: an exhilarating (small) hike! The rock also offered a view that went quite far back into the valley (although you of course couldn't see the coast, which was still 200 miles away). This would also be the first part of my drive: zig zagging down into the valley, and then following the river up to that lake you can see in the distance.
The drive was intense once again: hairpins all over the place as the grade down was quite steep. It was fun to see Moro rock in the mirror or in front every once of a while: the rock overlooking the valley dominates the view from almost everywhere in it.
Except for the hairpins the drive was quite uneventful until I entered the California valley proper: the whole piece of flat land between the mountain ranges and the coast. This is farming land, lots of farming land, very flat, and very dry. Kinda looks like the 'flevopolder' but then a lot less green. Here the wind picked up a lot of speed, resulting in whirlwinds and skewed cargo.
Driving behind this last truck was kinda sketchy actually: occasionally smoke smelling of rubber would blow out of it: I was waiting for one of the tires to blow so I kept my distance. This didn't happen in reality though. What attracted attention in the valley is that you saw signs about the water crisis almost everywhere: farmers telling drivers that this was a politically invented problem and that they should get their water for their jobs and to feed America. I don't know the details of the story, but I do know that I saw lots of dried out lakes and rivers that were once might reduced to streams...
The last section of road was really windy again, but I ended up safely in Morro Bay to my Motel. It was really really hot on the coast again, compared to the heights of Sequoia, and a nasty surprise: there was no air conditioning in the (cheap!) motel. The room was cool compared to the outside temperatures though, and with the fan on full power I did get a good night's rest. The usual motel recipe was of course also ran: trimming my hair, shower and shave, selecting pictures and editing movies for the blog...
The plan for the next days: drive up the coast, do some surfing, slowly make my way to San Mateo to visit Maker Faire!
Picasa links:
Day 54: Sequoia National Park
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