March/April 2021 - Joshua Tree NP, Kings Canyon/Sequoia NP

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General Grant sequoia

Our goal for this trip is to make it to Yosemite National Park for a landscape photography workshop.  On the way we will visit friends, relatives and several national parks.  We will spend several days at Yosemite for the workshop adding a few days to practice our skills before visiting a few more parks on our way back home.

We face the usual southwest spring weather during our drive across TX, NM, AZ and CA - incessant head wind.  At times the skies are brown from the blowing dust.  Driving through a pass just east of Tucson, sleet and freezing temperatures are added to the wind.  We stop outside of Phoenix for the night on our way to Joshua Tree National Park.  I don’t want to know our gas mileage; I know it is low due to the wind.  I almost see the needle move towards ‘E’ whenever I step on the gas.

Joshua Tree NP

Cholla cactus

Entering Joshua Tree from the south introduces us to the Colorado desert, a portion of the Sonoran desert.  Here it occupies the area below 3,000’ in elevation.  We see mixtures of plants; Palo Verde, Pencil Cholla and Brittlebrush to name a few.  Other plants definitely live in specific regions; Ocotillo, nonexistent during most of our drive through the park dominates the landscape a mile or two along the road, then disappears.  We stop for lunch under one of the larger ones before continuing.  We see the same with Cholla cactus.  The park service has a designated ‘Cholla Garden’ along the road. There is parking lot and signs describing the area.  You can look all you want but don’t touch, even from a distance their thorns look painful.

We climb out of the Colorado desert at 3,000’ entering the Mojave desert.  Here we see different vegetation; Joshua Trees, Mojave Yuccas, Parry’s Nolina, Juniper and Scrub Oak.  Even these seem to live in their own regions, although less defined.

Rock outcroppings are different, they show up any and everywhere.  Over the millennia they have been pushed up, broken into pieces while still under the soil then exposed by erosion.  Some of the outcroppings are very organized; neatly stacked rocks/boulders beside each other; others are random piles, while others are a mixture of both.  Somehow small plants grow and flourish in little more than a crack in the rocks.

Joshua trees are the reason we came here.  Many appear to have been here for hundreds of years; old, scraggly, branches bent and twisted in odd directions – like they have been through a war, their wounds still visible yet they are still growing.  The Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia) is a plant species belonging to the genus Yucca, not a tree at all.

We hike several short trails.  Our cameras and eagerness to photograph the area hinders our long distance hiking plans.  The area is beautiful with plants nestled in around the rock outcroppings while others stand out on their own.

A few of the rock outcroppings are the center of attention for rock climbers.  We stop to watch climbers scale up the 30 – 50’ walls.  We look at each other knowing this is just the starting point for the climbing we will see at Yosemite.

Skull Rock

Joshua Tree

Nolina

Elephant Rock

Our last morning we are serenaded by a lone coyote, another joins in, then a family of pups add to the song.  A second chorus follows before falling back into silence.  Later, woodpeckers take over; drumming on Joshua Trees searching for tasty morsels.

Los Angeles

We are on our way to Pomona to visit family and friends.  On our way we pass a huge wind farm.  Wind mills of many sizes face the wind; small ones – spinning frantically; scores of medium ones, whirling in unison; large ones– rotating gracefully.

Redondo Beach pier

Traffic through LA comes and goes; large packs of vehicles pass us; doing the speed limit does not seem acceptable.  An empty hole ensues, a breather for the driver, before the next onslaught of vehicles.  Over the 90 minute drive in LA we are forced to slow down not more than a handful of times.  I found a RV park in Pomona near the fairgrounds.  Not our idea of a camping spot but we are pleasantly surprised by the amount of green space and a lake.  The place is packed with campers upon our arrival with more arriving and setting up as we enjoy our lunch.

Redondo Beach is another 50 miles west of where we are staying.  I lose count of the number of interstates and highways we use to get there.  Many more than should be needed in a metropolitan area.  After visiting and lunch with one of Nicida’s high school friends we drive another few miles to the beach.  The beach area – restaurants, bars, shops and the beach itself are full of tourists.  We stop on the pier observing a handful of surfers waiting their turn to ride the perfect wave.  That evening we enjoy the light traffic returning to the campground.  The campground is rocking, not from an earthquake; it seems loud music, and yelling are the way to have a good time.  The celebrations finally die down sometime around midnight.

Sequoia, Kings Canyon NPs

We face heavy winds again ascending north out of LA towards Sequoia NP.  Turning off the main highway in Bakersfield we are on a two lane highway for the balance of our day.  The terrain, mainly flat is filled with oil pumping equipment.  It is everywhere.  I don’t think another piece of equipment can be squeezed into the area.  As we continue the oil machinery disappears; orange groves taking their place.  Occasionally a grove of bare trees fill the landscape; almonds or pistachios?  The orange groves go on for scores of miles.  Some trees are more orange than green.  Climbing into the Sierra Nevada foothills the landscape changes to natural flora; trees, shrubs, grasses and cactus.

Moro rock

We are a bit early in the season for visiting this part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Speaking with a ranger we find out the main road between Sequoia and Kings Canyon has only opened up in the past couple days.  The ranger informs us May and June are good times for visiting when all the roads and facilities are open, later in summer one has to deal with the heat at the lower elevations.  During our visit we see up to four feet of snow in some locations along the mountain top sections of the main road. 

From our campsite just outside the southern entrance of Sequoia NP we begin our tour.  The road snakes along the foothills.  A sign, past the visitor center recommends that vehicles over 24’ should not proceed.  Carrying tire chains is mandatory, (many businesses in town have chains for rent).  Having measured our vehicle for our Alaska ferry ride in 2019 I know we are only 22’ long.  I count 13 switchbacks, close to 180° turns, ascending the mountains.  This does not count the many easier twists and turns we encounter.  We reach the crest at just over 6,000’.  50° and sunny skies at our campsite cools to 30°.  Snow still hiding in the shade at lower elevations boldly piles up around us.

WOW! Is all we can say seeing the first sequoias.  They are in an entirely different league of trees.  The red bark stands out, the look and texture of the bark is different.  And the size; indescribable – WOW.  Along the mountain top, home to these sequoias, fog rolls in and out making the whole scene surreal.  The tops of the trees disappear into the fog.  Do they really end there or is the fog hiding the real tree tops?

The Giant Forest Museum operating limited hours is closed, so we walk; gingerly, along the ‘The Big Trees Trail’ instead.

General Grant tree

It is covered by snow and ice hence the slow walk.
Snowshoes or mini spikes would be the way to go under these circumstances.

The second day we drive deeper into the park.  The General Sherman Tree parking area is packed.  A line of cars sit and wait for earlier visitors to return to open a parking space.  We have another day to visit so we pass on seeing General Sherman.

Hospital Rock

Hospital Rock is in the lower foothills.  A few pictographs are painted on one of the large rocks near the river.  Potwisha Native Americans lived in the area starting around 1350.

Kings Canyon

We make a loop route for our visit of Kings Canyon/Sequoia parks.  We head towards town, refuel, then follow the backroads through more orange groves, into the foothills.  The route twists, dips, and climbs giving us brief views of the terrain.  There is very little traffic on the narrow, but scenic route.  Approaching Kings Canyon we climb higher encountering snow.  Arriving at the visitor center parking lot we see very few people and wonder if we are at the right location.  Finally we spot the visitor center; it is buried under and hidden behind so much snow that we can see only small sections of the building.  The park rangers are happy to see us.  After one question of what there is to see they offer many suggestions; General Grant Tree and surrounding forest, Hume Lake which has only recently opened, and several overlooks along the road.  We do each; still amazed at the size of the sequoias.  We can only drive a few miles down Kings Canyon Scenic Byway before the road is closed, detouring us towards Hume Lake.  We stop at a canyon overlook on the way to Hume Lake this appears to be the place where clouds play...  We watched them form, swirl around the ridges disappear and reform elsewhere.

Hume Lake

Hume Lake

Mountain top
road conditions

General Sherman tree

We follow General’s Highway, the main road between Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.  It is 60+ miles long following along the top of the mountains.  Heavy fog moves in causing us to slow our 25 mph drive to 15.  We can only see a few hundred feet in front of us for 10+ miles of our drive.  The fog is still thick arriving at General Sherman Tree, the largest living thing on the earth.  The line of vehicles is longer than we encountered yesterday.  Since this is our last day we park at a wide spot in the road hiking back several hundred yards to the parking lot and trail head.  The fog is so thick the tree appears like a ghost, revealing more and more detail as we approach the massive trunk.  We read that some of the limbs, a few hundred feet in the air are over three feet in diameter – a good size tree in itself.

Leaving General Sherman the fog persists for the next several miles.  It lingers on our initial descent off the mountain finally disappearing at the foothills.  Blue sky finally appears the as we exit the park several thousand feet lower than the cloud covered mountains.

On to Yosemite.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark