We came. We saw. We Wendt.

Allison and I visited Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park last week. We stayed overnight at a bed and breakfast (no breakfast though) on Wednesday so that we’d be better rested for setting up our tent on Thursday.

The rest of the nights were at Azalea Campground in Kings Canyon, about a half-mile hike to General Grant Tree.

General Sherman Tree

Thursday’s itinerary was to visit the largest living single-stem tree in the world, by volume (that’s a lot of qualifiers, but nerds be nerding). Pictures cannot capture the sense of grandeur these giant sequoias have and the super-massive ones like General Sherman must be experienced in person.

In the same grove as Sherman, we found some other fun things like a cross-section of a giant sequoia and two giants you could walk between and feel tiny.

My favorite human made thing in the entire park was the brickwork at a rest stop along the trail to General Sherman. The blocks create a life-size outline of Sherman Tree’s footprint.

Tunnel Log

Not far from General Sherman is another famous sight. We drove through tunnel log twice since the line was short.

We explored the area some more till the sun was down and that was the end of Thursday.

The Friday We Took For Grant[ed]

We were going to head back over to the General Sherman area on Friday, about an hour away from our campground, but we ended up hiking over to General Grant and then checking out a lake. This wasn’t what we should have done on Friday… more on that later.

General Grant

We went down the hill behind our campsite and got onto the trail leading the General Grant Tree. There’s a parking lot down there, but our campsite was actually closer.

The first interesting thing we found along the way was Michigan Tree which fell in 1931 due to a creek eroding the ground out from under it.

Another few hundred yards and we arrived at General Grant Tree.

I wore my Fire Swamp National Park shirt that day. The rangers at the visitor center loved it.

After seeing two of the biggest trees in the world, I decided to give the smaller ones some love.

Hume Lake

To round out our day, we drove over to Hume Lake to eat a snack on the shore.

We wanted a fire on the second night so we picked a random road to go looking for down & dead wood. The forest was aplenty with free wood, but it took us a while to find pieces small enough to fit the firepit. Note to self: acquire chainsaw.

That random road we picked ended up being a beautiful drive to a lookup spot. We got to the top after sundown, but this view was probably better anyway.

We did find a wheelbarrow worth of pine which was enough for two nights.

Saturday Was Busy

After breakfast at Grant Grove Restaurant (understaffed and the food was only okay), we headed out to Giant Forest Museum. As we’d been warned numerous times, the weekend was crazy. We tried multiple times to get to the museum throughout the day but the parking lot and road parking was constantly taken. We could have parked at the visitor center and taken a bus over, but that didn’t seem worth it.

My original plan was to do Sherman and Tunnel Log on Thursday, the two most popular destinations and very nearby each other. Friday was going to be the Museum, visitor center, and anything else in that area we wanted to check out. Saturday would be General Grant and anything over in Kings Canyon area. Switching Friday and Saturday plans was our biggest mistake of the trip. That said, Saturday wasn’t all lost.

Swimming Hole

After a stop at the Foothills Visitor Center, Allison waded into the Kaweah River just below Hospital Rock. The climb down to the pools was neat. A path aside from the Hospital Rock trail lead you under boulders and down stone stairs to a series of short waterfalls and pools.

Cosplay Photoshoot

After cooling off, we continued back up to the Giant Forest. Allison will share more from the photoshoot later, but here is a preview.

Allison brought her Princess Leia costume from Return of the Jedi. The force was strong in the Giant Forest.

And That Was That

Sunday morning, we packed up and got on the road for the 10-hour drive home.

We hope to visit again someday, maybe bring the family along for a big trip. Our next big adventure we’d like to do is Yellowstone, but nothing remotely solid yet. For now, we’ve got some more Arizona camping to do.