Thursday, June 11, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend Part II

As promised, although it is a day late here is the next installment of our lovely Memorial Day Weekend! Saturday morning Greg and I woke up early eager to start the day. We decided to do Kings Canyon National Park on Saturday and then finish our trip on Sunday by visiting Sequoia National Park. So after waking up early on Saturday Greg set out to make breakfast while I got everything ready for the day. Breakfast was fairly uneventful since Greg had learned and mastered the stove the night before, although we both had the pleasure of sitting in tree sap that has yet to come out of our clothes (any ideas on how to get that stuff out would be greatly appreciated!). Once we had everything safely packed away in the bear box we drove to Kings Canyon National Park and were shocked by how beautiful it was. Our first stop was General Grant’s Tree. This tree was incredible it is insanely tall; I don’t think that I can put into words how incredible this tree is, and the base of this tree is HUGE! Like I said it is impossible to put in to words but I definitely recommend seeing it! Our next stop was the Fallen Monarch which is also a gigantic tree except that it has fallen over, but the neatest part of this tree is that the trail actually goes through the middle! Throughout history it has been used as a shelter for various people who came through the area, and it was amazing to see Greg, who is quite tall standing upright inside of a tree! Next we made our way to Boyden Cave which was quite beautiful, although the hike up to it was strenuous to say the least! Boyden Cave was different from other caves we have visited because it was carved out by a river. Greg and I always enjoy cave tours but I think Boyden Cave is at the top of his list! Once we finished up with the cave tour we stopped by Knapp’s Cabin just to take a few pictures. The history of the cabin is fairly uneventful as it was used for storage during the 1920’s but I did enjoy looking inside it. Once we finished taking pictures we stopped to eat lunch and I must confess I had to apologize to Greg for being slightly cranky during the first part of the day, but thank goodness he was forgiving and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day. We set out on our hike which was beautiful and would have been a large 6 mile loop if the river was not overflowing and thus blocking the path. Oh well; we just turned around and headed back the way we came. We made a few more short stops on our way out of the park one to Roaring River Falls and the other to Grizzly Falls, both were beautiful, although there was quite a few people which made them less relaxing than we had hoped. On the way back to camp after our busy day we decided to stop by the camp store and take a shower…there is nothing in the world like a camp shower; mostly because you are so dirty from all the activities! After our showers we drove past Hume Lake which has very nice cabins and looked very nice, we were told our first night in camp that Hume Lake was where most of the people from Orange County went and after seeing it I agree, let’s just say I don’t know if I consider that camping! After our long day we went back to camp and enjoyed Mac and Cheese and hot dogs! We did have a short fire but were so exhausted we went to bed early again and slept amazingly well.

Here are some of the pictures from our day at Kings Canyon National Park. I will post our last installment of our Memorial Day Weekend on Monday, have a superb weekend!


Greg standing by a group of Sequoia's

General Grant's Tree

The Fallen Monarch.

View from the trail up to Boyden Cave.

Inside of the cave.

Knapp's Cabin

View from the trail...

A deer on the side of the trail.

Can't get there from here.

Great picture of the falls!


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