Tuesday Peg, Scout and I took a road trip up to Sequoia NP. This is about 120 miles from Bakersfield through Oil City, the vast orchards of nut and fruit trees and small towns to the western entrance. The approach is over very winding and twisting roads heading up from a couple of thousand feet to a maximum elevation of just over 7000 feet. The countryside is very dry from the prolonged drought in this part of the world and it shows in the dry lakes and creeks. We didn’t see the vast forests of dead trees like at Yosemite; however, it is obvious that a lot of the trees are under stress.

There are wonderful views of huge granite monoliths, canyons and valleys as we twisted up the mountains. At one point, the road was under construction and down to one lane where there was a flagger. We had to wait the better part of an hour there. Which was ok as Scout made some new California friends on the road. Of course the highlight of the trip was seeing General Sherman, the large Sequoia. The tree is about a half mile from the parking lot down a wide paved trail. It is amazing to see these huge old trees. The General is estimated to be some 2000 years old.

Due to the construction, we decided to take the road on through Kings Canyon to CA 245 back to Bakersfield. The day was getting late so we only drove by Kings Canyon. From the road you could see that here was a lot more dead trees and much fire damage, which is sad to see. We almost missed the turn off to 245 as it was not marked that clearly and that should have been a sign to us. CA 245 is 50 miles of switch backs, tight turns and seemingly endless curves. The Bronze Brute was lock to lock on the steering wheel on a great many of the switch backs and more than once I thought we might to do some back and forth to through. I love this kind of driving and thank goodness there was no one on the road with us (another sure clue) as I used all the road!

It was a fun and interesting day and I got a few pictures which can be seen from the link below. Thanks for reading.

Sjh

Sequoia NP