October 25. 2024 - Giant Forest

 

Title: October 25. 2024 - Giant Forest
Hike Info : Description : Background : Extra Photo's : Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking 

Trail head: Giant Forest Museum parking area

Trail:  Moro Rock, Soldier, Bill Hill Trails

Destination: Lop

Distance:  4.27 miles 

Start Time: 11:48

End Time:    3:42

Travel Time:  3:54 (1.10 mph)

Moving Time:  2;49  (1.52 mph)

Elevation Rise:  1,122'

Descent: 828‘

Maximum Elevation: 6,800'

GPS Tracks

Description:

Happy Birthday to Me! I got up at 5:30. Then I lumbered around for a while, then had breakfast. Sherri gets up at 7:45. Yesterday we got a letter saying that Liberty Mutual is dropping our home insurance. Why? Some outbuilding have either algae, mold, or mildew. I go up to make sure I do not find any of that-I do not. Then phone up Liberty and ordered a copy of the image they are using to make this determination. Guess we will see how this all turns out.

We leave our home at 9:30. Because it is my birthday, Sherri decides to drive. So I settled back and enjoyed the ride. We briefly stop when we get into the Park. Then on to Giant Forest. We arrived about 11:40. As we were getting ready, a man from Kyrgyzstan asked to have his picture taken. First time I have met someone from there. Then a couple from Toronto parked beside us. They asked where would be a good place to go around here/ I recommended Crescent Meadows, then the General Sherman tree. Both are really awesome.

 

 

About noon, we are ready to start. That is after using the restroom. Sherri needs to go back and change out her glasses, so I sit on a log and wait. The route which we are going to do today, we have done a couple of times before. This is our Fall hike in the area. I think we are about a week, maybe two early.While there are Fall colors, there is still much green showing.

The first part of our walk is the Moro Rock Trail. This takes us through a forest of burnt trees. I speculate this was caused by the KNP Complex Fire, about three years ago. The burnt forest is there with a backdrop of smoke. I think this smoke is from the Happy Fire, north of Kings Canyon.

As we progress along the trail, we leave the burnt forest behind and go through a couple ravines. We now encounter some of the colors we were hoping for. Mostly the yellowing of ferns with a few touches of red of the dogwoods. Of course, there is the reddish-orange of the bark of my Sequoias. And I say “my” Sequoias. Who really owns them but Him who created them. I am only able to appreciate and love that Creator through enjoying these trees.

 

Soldier Trail

Along this route I think of another time along here. John and Cathy come to mind by a particular Sequoia. A spot along the trail where Rose and I lightly discussed some of the current topics of our time. It was good to be able to share a trail, a place, a time with others. It is even better being able to share this time with my wife.

We get to the road to Moro Rock and this ends our time on the Moro Rock trail. We walked along the Crescent Meadow Road for a third of a mile, at the Buttress Tree, I took a picture for some Japanese youth-are almost all people younger than me now? Then we reach a favorite trail in the Park, the Soldier Trail-take a look below for why it is called that. We seldom find people on it. And I will not advertise it too much.

A couple hundred feet onto Soldiers Trail, we find a nice rock to sit on and have lunch. Maybe we did not go far enough. Most of what we see is a sea of green, red and yellow. This is why we came this way. But looking a bit to the east I see the glint of a reflection from cars going around the Tunnel Log Tree. But we do not hear them, instead we are able to enjoy a lunch in comparative isolation.

After lunch we continue our climb up and over an unnamed ridge which Bear Hill is on. This takes us out of the area of Fall colors and into an area which had fire a while back. There is one burnt tree which I have been fascinated with called the Burnt Arrow.

When we reach the top of the ridge, we go downhill rather steeply. It is surprising to me how much down we are going as it does not seem like we have gone up all that much. Sherri and I have a discussion about the steepness. I think the Lewis Creek trail in parts is steep; Sherri thinks this is steeper. When I lay down the tracks after we get home, I find out the Soldier Trail has a steeper down hill. I learn something new.

Burnt Arrow

At the bottom of the ridge, we come across a couple of trail junctions. One will lead us back up the ridge, another down to the highway and Round Meadow. But we chose the way to Bear Hill.

This gets us onto an uphill stretch, which seems more uphill than the 120’ it is. It is still one foot in front of the other. We get to the junction of the trail going to the Museum. But we travel a hundred feet further and come to Bear Hill. How do we know? A sign says so. Also there is a RAWS here as well-looks like a large, menacing robot. In the robot’s presence, we rest for a few minutes and greedily gulp down Sherri’s peanut butter cookie.

I had seen that a second trail leads down to the Museum area. This one being 0.5 miles. We decided to take this trail rather than the normal one. Why? Not because it is shorter, but because I could not remember going down it before. That is always a good reason for me to go down a trail.

 

This one did not disappoint either. It is completely one way-down. There is one place where we get on an overlook to the southwest which has the haze on it. We started off in a strictly pine forest. But then it gives way for a final display of color before emptying us out on the Crescent Meadows Road, a little ways from the Museum.

Even this did not disappoint on the excitement front. The road is narrow and even normally two cars facing each other would have to wait. And now you have two hikers also on the side. But the cars sorted things out and we walked down to the Museum, then across the General’s highway to our waiting car. We got back about 3:40.

It takes about 20 minutes for us and then we are off. Sherri offers to drive, but I could tell, she was not really into it. So I drove back. The discussion we have is do we stop at Bear Mountain Pizza or eat at home leftover chicken marsala and garlic potatoes which Steven made yesterday for my birthday? What kind of fool would turn down the chicken marsala, so that is what we did when we got back at 5:50. This is my kind of birthday

.

Background

Giant Forest RAWS station at Bear Hill

Soldiers Trail. I recently found out why this was called the Soldier’s Trail. Just beyond that, you’ll pass the site of Soldiers Camp, from which this trail derives its name. On this site in 1911, the army set up a camp from which they patrolled the forest to protect the Sequoias. Since most visitors at the time camped near Round Meadow, the army was frequently passing between the camp and what is now the Giant Forest Museum. At first, the soldiers followed the road, but they soon cut their own trail, shaving nearly a mile off of the route. This trail is the one you’ve been following since leaving the Alta Trail. From Modern Hiker blog.

RAWS. RAWS stands for Remote Automatic Weather Stations. This particular station is known as Giant Forest and can be found through Mesowest.

Extra Photo's

Gary and a Sequoia

Dogwood

Red leaves of fall

Deer Ridge

Gary

Fall Leaves

Fall Leaves

Scene off of Soldier Trail

More fall foilage

Top of ridge on Soldier Trail

Sky watching

 
Flowers and Plants

Dogwood

Dogwood pods

Dogwood

Dogwood pods

Fungi

June 11, 2014 - Trail of the Sequioas

 Title: June 11, 2014 - Trail of the Sequoias

Trail head: General Sherman Tree Parking Lot

Hike Info:

Type:  Hiking

Trail: Trail of the Sequoias

Destination: Loop

Distance: 9.08 miles

Start Time:  9:01

End Time:   3:36

Travel Time: 6:35 (1.38 mph)

Moving Time: 4:49 (1.89 mph)

Elevation Rise: 1,639'

Maximum Elevation: 7,102'

Description:
Got up at 5 because it looks like we will be picking up three people, two of them we will drive to their place. We make it to one of the person's pick up place, but the person is not there and apparently is not ready to go. But we pick up Angel at her house and Richard at the Old Schoolhouse Restaurant. I think we are about 15 minutes behind, but Richard says that the group just went by 5 minutes ago, so we are in good shape. We catch up to the group at the Wye. while waiting for construction. Then onward to the Grant Grove Visitor Center to relieve our bodies before hitting construction again and then to the General Sherman Tree parking lot.

General Sherman Tree

I am packing pretty close to my ten day pack; Sherri is the same. There are 18 of us in this group: John and Cathey, Jerry K, Stephanie, Mary, Rob, Richard, Angel, Meagan, DD, Joe, Leslie, Becky, Matt, Lee F, Lee J, plus Sherri and myself. A good group, but over the day we will get spread out a bit.

The first third of a mile is a pretty steep decline, until we get to the General Sherman Tree, the largest living organism on our planet. We get properly awestruck at it's immenseness. But this is just the beginning. But first Jerry K takes us a bit further down to the handicap parking lot and bathrooms. 

Cathey, Angel, Sherri

This area is appropriately named, Giant Forest. Trees, trees, trees, everywhere, and not your garden variety trees. These are big, mature trees, not only tall, but massive. In a different age, there was a tendency to name anything and everything with some prominence. So we get groups of trees called The Senate, The Congress, The President, the Lincoln Tree, the McKinley Tree and many others. Each of these, anyplace else would be an object of wonder. Here, it is so easy to slip into thinking, it's just another tree. One always has to be on guard not to treat the extra-ordinary as common. But when you get right down to it, when we think about it, we see a world just packed full of extra-ordinary play things. Sort of like in The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis talks about how God is a hedonist, creating a world full of play things for His children.

Bird Watching

DD Being Swallowed

The path which Jerry K leads us on circumnavigates the eastern edge of Circle Meadow-we will come back along the western edge of this Meadow in a vain search for Cattle Cabin. The wandering, and wondering, through Giant Forest is such a pleasant interchange of large trees, meadows which spread out thousands of feet, and tiny rivulets with life giving water. Each of these meadows are bounded by ridge which the trail  leads us over. So after each climb, you feel like that was not so bad. But when you look at a whole days travel, you realize you have done some work, like 1,600' of rise. Not too bad for just going up and down mostly minor ridges.

Log Meadow

Log Meadow

After passing Circle Meadow, we cross a few more rises and see Log Meadow. With Log Meadow comes Tharp's Log-see the connection. A couple thoughts come to my mind. The first is what a shabby little cabin for such a bright green meadow. The second thought was if I lived here, I do not think I would care how shabby the cabin was-I would be in heaven.

Tharp's Log

Log Meadow Bear

We circle on the east side of Log Meadow. John is into pondering huge fallen Sequoia's. There are a few laying in this meadow. I show John one of them, but then I see another log with this funny looking growth laying in the sun across the cross. Then the funny ball moves-it's a bear sunning herself! From others in the group, there were also two cubs playing. But all which I saw was this mama bear enjoying the sun and scrounging for food. The group stopped and looked for a good 15 minutes before trudging on for lunch at Crescent Meadows.

Crescent Meadow

Lunch is an enjoyable affair. I am seated with Matt G, Mary, Sherri and Stephanie. John is impressed with this area and wants to know what else can be done around here. We chit-chat for awhile, but eventually we have to move.

Our return trip takes us along the west side of a Crescent Meadows. We move pretty good. That is, until we see another bear rousting around for food in Circle Meadow. Once again we stop to enjoy the scene and take pictures. But we break up and leave the bear in peace.

There is a group of five of us who move pretty quickly and out-pace the rest of us. That will be the last we see of them until the parking lot. The rest of us are content to enjoy what we are seeing at a little slower pace.

 

Circle Meadow Bear

Hikers looking at bear

 
When we get to the far side(north west), we were expecting to see Cattle Cabin. This is a historic cabin which the early cattlemen used as a summer headquarters. But we do not see it and the trail signs are leaving us all clueless. There is only so much beauty the soul can absorb before it grows tired. I think our group is reaching that saturation point because we are starting to count how many more miles is it till we get to the car. 

Some Oh Wow Flowers

So we descend down to the a General Sherman Tree area and count heads before trudging up to the parking a area. Remember that steep descent we did at the beginning? Well, we are left with that being our final obstacle before reaching the cars. So with a fair amount of aches, and stopping to breath we climb up to the parking lot. You would think that a person who hikes all over the place would not have troubles, but hundreds of tourists each day made it up the slope better than I did. But fortunately, others were just as slow as I was.

We have a meal at the Lodgepole area, then head on back. We drop off Richard and Angel. Then get back atnd head for a hot, relaxing shower.

Trail Lesson:

Sherri

Gary

One always has to be on guard not to treat the extra-ordinary as common. But when you get right down to it, when we think about it, we see a world just packed full of extra-ordinary play things.