Sequoia

When we bid farewell to Crescent City and the coast redwoods, we wandered south down the coast and eventually turned east to Sequoia National Park. We ended up spending a few days in Lemon Cove, which is just a few miles from the south entrance to the park.

Although we've visited Sequoia before, and had of course just spent a number of days seeing the coastal redwoods, we were both surprised at our reactions to seeing the forest giants that populate Sequoia National Park. I've spent a little time thinking about why this was so, and have several reasons.

First, of course, is that we've probably become more sensitive to the uniqueness of these forest giants. Seeing the coast redwoods the second time, in our recent visit, was every bit as awe-inspiring as our first visit a couple of months back.

Second, the sequoias are actually easier to see. The groves of sequoias are, for the most part, less dense than the coast redwood groves. They are brighter and more open, and it is easier for the eye to focus on individual specimens.

Also, sequoias are if anything more picturesque than their coastal cousins. They are clothed in a bright rusty-red bark, significantly more colorful than the uniform gray of coast redwoods. Also, we typically saw the sequoias silhouetted against a bright blue sky, emphasizing the contrast between the red bark and green foliage.

Most importantly, though, is that sequoias are simply MASSIVE! Although not nearly as tall as coast redwoods, they are much bigger in terms of mass or volume. If coast redwoods might be thought of as the tree equivalent of pro basketball players - tall and lean and graceful - sequoias are the equivalent of offensive lineman in the NFL. Every part of them screams mass and solidity. The biggest of these guys are some 100 feet in circumference. Their biggest branches are themselves some 8-10 feet in diameter.

The first photo is of the General Sherman tree, the most massive (largest in terms of volume) living thing on the planet. The ones below are simply other shots of these forest giants.

Not for the first time, words fail me to adequately describe what we saw here. John Muir expressed things far better than I can:

“When I entered this sublime wilderness the day was nearly done, the trees with rosy, glowing countenances seemed to be hushed and thoughtful, as if waiting in conscious religious

 dependence on the sun, and one naturally walked softly and awestricken among them.” 

Redwoods, Part 2

When we visited Redwoods National Park in early October, we vowed to come back. Neither one of us felt we really got enough time amongst these giants. So, on our way back south we made a point of stopping and spending a few days here.

We left Bend, Oregon and enjoyed an absolutely spectacular drive across the Cascades. Our route took us past the north and west entrances to Crater Lake National Park. It turned out that the visitor center was still open. That wasn't good enough for us, though; the road around the crater rim is closed for the winter. We didn't want to cheat ourselves here, so we reluctantly decided that Crater Lake will wait for us to return.

So we crossed the Cascades and ran up I-5 to Grants Pass, where we picked up US 199 south to US 101 in Crescent City. We lucked out on our choice of RV parks in Crescent City; we picked a KOA situated maybe five miles north of the city... in its own grove of redwoods! The back part of the campground, where they have the tent campsites, is a redwoods grove that looked like it was logged maybe a century ago. It is full of cut-off stumps as well as regrowth. Our site was on the edge of the grove and we actually had a redwood in our site.

This grove of young redwoods started across the street from our campsite.

This bad boy was IN our campsite!

Crescent City sits surrounded by Jedediah Smith State Park, one of the three California State Parks that, along with the National Park, comprise Redwoods National and State Parks. This combined entity protects redwoods and the coastline for some 50 miles south of Crescent City. There are endless trails and vistas to be explored. One could spend a month here and not see it all. We did what we could, in just a few days....

This is the Smith River.

The coast, looking north toward Crescent City in the distance. 

Bend

We'd driven through Bend in August on our mad dash south before Parker's birth. It struck us as a picturesque place, but we had no time to stop. Now, we do have the time and decided to spend a few days here.

We weren't disappointed. Bend sits east of the Cascades, astride the Deschutes River, in a transitional area between the pine forests of the mountains and the sagebrush east of here. We are actually staying in an RV park near Sisters, some 15 miles west of Bend. We are sited in a pine forest, surrounded by National Forest land.

We spent several days hiking through the National Forest. One of the hikes tooks us a few miles east of here, where all of the vegetation reminded us of our childhood on the Mojave desert, being surrounded by sagebrush and juniper trees.

Another hike took us through an area that had burned, probably within the last ten years or so. As you might imagine, it was different, seeing both the twisted carcasses of burnt trees as well as new growth beginning to appear.

At all times we were surrounded by the Cascades, which are dotted with volcanic peaks rising above the landscape. The little town of Sisters is named for a set of peaks named the Sisters.

The double peak on the right is North Sister and Middle Sister; the one on the left is South Sister.

We got to spend a few hours with Charles and Maria Simons and their daughters. Maria and our daughter Jill went to both high school and college together. A few years back, we had a surprise 80th birthday gathering for my mother-in-law; the whole family traveled to Las Vegas to surprise her. Charles and Maria thought that sounded like fun, and showed up, too! By now, of course, they're simply part of the family.

We were really smitten with Bend. Although we arrived here in a real cold spell (-9°F low the first night, 30°F the next day) we are really taken with the beauty of this place. Housing costs, at least out in Sisters where we were, are very reasonable. It's now on our radar as a place we might like to settle down in. We'll be back again, probably for a longer period of time.

So What's Next?

As I've previously stated, we're heading south for the holidays. We've got reservations in SoCal starting on November 20. Before then, we've got a plan of sorts.

We're in Bend, Oregon right now; I'll have more to say about Bend in a separate post. When we arrived here, they got hit with a massive cold spell; this was caused by the same weather pattern that is giving rise to the winds that are causing all of the problems in California right now. The night we arrived here, the low was 9°F! The next day, the high was 30°F.

Although it has warmed significantly since then, this is still way too cold for us. We're headed south!

Tomorrow (11/2) we're breaking camp and heading south to Crescent City, CA. We'll be there for a few days revisiting Redwoods National Park. From there, we'll head further south and inland, eventually arriving in Lemon Cove, CA, which is just outside of Sequoia National Park. We'll be there a couple of days, then continue on south to Death Valley National Park.

I've been to Death Valley, but that was before it was a National Park. Cathy's never been.

From Death Valley, we'll continue south (notice a trend here?) to Joshua Tree National Park. After a few days here, we'll turn west to our holiday home.