Helloooo!
I’ve been a little quiet lately because I’ve spent my last few weekends pretty close to “home” (Grass Valley, California) due to myriad reasons. (OK, the reason is related to my yoga teaching, but more on that later.)
However, I had zero plans during my three-day Presidents’ Day/ Washington’s Birthday weekend, so I decided to take a road trip south to Sequoia National Park!
I know National Parks on holiday weekends are SUPER tricky because they get incredibly busy, but with only one weekend left in California, I really didn’t want to waste the opportunity. So, after waffling for a few days, I decided on Friday to just suck it up and go.
Because of my lack of planning (whoops), most hotels were booked for the full weekend… which was fine, because I did have stuff I needed to get done here. I found a cheap motel room for Sunday night, so I woke up at 5 a.m. Saturday and drove the five-and-a-half hours south to Sequoia National Park.
I got there at about 11 a.m. and drove several thousand feet up to Wolverton. I’d planned to slowly make my way back down and stop at some of the popular areas along the drive.
That ended up… not happening as easily as I thought it would.
Most lots were closed off due to snow, but the visitor info sheet wasn’t clear about which lots were open and which weren’t, so I spent a lot of time trying to find parking. Drivers made their own spots, boxed other vehicles in, parked half-on the shoulder and half-on the road, pulled seven-point turns near blind curves trying to drive up and down in search of parking… yikes. It was a big mess.
The visitor info sheet said that the park offered shuttles during the summer and on “some holidays,” but didn’t specify if Presidents’ Day was one of those “some holidays” and I didn’t see any buses anywhere, so I just kept aimlessly driving for almost two hours trying to find parking and worrying about running out of gas, Jeep problems.
Finally, at about 1 p.m., I found a spot at a turn-out (apparently, you can park there as long as you’re not in the roadway?) and decided to just hike up to the spots I wanted to see, since the turn-out was only a few miles down the mountain from General Sherman.
If you’re not familiar with Sequoia NP, General Sherman is probably the park’s biggest attraction. It’s the largest tree in the world by volume. It’s about 275 feet tall and is somewhere around 2,500 years old.
I walked up along the roadway until I got to the museum and then dipped onto Big Trees Trail, and then from there, I hopped onto the Giant Forest trail system, which leads from Big Trees Trail up to General Sherman Tree.
I took the Rimrock Trail from Big Trees to General Sherman until I lost the trail and ended up just hiking up along Generals Highway for the last quarter-mile or so.
I wandered around, convinced a very nice family to take a photo of me with General Sherman, and then wandered back to the trail system.
I hopped on the Congress Trail, which led to the McKinley Tree Junction, where about five different trails intersected. It’s where the Rimrock Trail was actually supposed to lead, and I’m glad I found it coming from General Sherman, because it was a really cool hike that featured some other MASSIVE sequoias.
I’d been planning on taking the same Rimrock Trail back from General Sherman to the museum, but I couldn’t find the trail in the snow (no wonder previous hikers had just re-routed down to the highway) so I took Alta Trail instead, which actually ended up being a really good choice! It was set back further from the highway so there wasn’t any traffic noise at all, and it was really peaceful. Once I got about a quarter-mile away from McKinley Tree Junction, there wasn’t anyone else around and I had the entire trail to myself, which was so nice.
Then, that was it! I made it back to the museum, hiked back down to my Jeep, and made my way out of the park and back to my hotel in Three Rivers as the sun started setting.
I grabbed dinner at a Mexican restaurant (there are like, four restaurants in Three Rivers), checked into my motel, and fell asleep at 8 p.m., I was so tired.
I’d considered waking up early on Monday and going back out to Sequoia to explore some more, but since it would take me about 90 minutes to get into the park and drive back up to 7,000 feet — and I had a looming six-hour drive back to Grass Valley — I decided to just end my weekend. I did some yoga in my hotel room, checked out and headed back to northern California.
Overall, it was a really great trip. I want to come back again in the future when 1. There’s fresh snowfall (photos look BEAUTIFUL!) and 2. In the summer so I can get around easier (and over to Kings Canyon) without the seasonal road closures.
