Tuesday 14 August 2018
It is our last full day in Kings Canyon/ Sequoia National Park. We have elected to spend the day hiking a 7.25 mile loop through the most extensive stand of Sequoias still in existence. After our orange chocolate chip cake breakfast we hop in Vincent and drive about 13 miles to a single track dirt road which winds another two miles down through the forest to the trailhead. As we are preparing for our hike we meet a father and his adult daughter also readying for the walk. They have been coming to this park every year for 19 years. O and I can understand why they love it so much. Our fellow hikers will walk the route counter-clockwise. O and I go clockwise so we can follow our guidebook’s trail description.
We walk down a half mile trail to the beginning of the loop. We’ve already passed several sequoias. As we begin our circuit we pause frequently, either to admire the standing giants, or to look at birds, or to photograph wildflowers. By the time we meet our counter-clockwise friends, we have travelled about two miles. They have gone over five. We explain with smiles that we are having a great deal of difficulty with this trail. There are just too many things to see, and we are concerned we won’t be out before dark. The father and daughter understand. That’s why they’ve been coming here so many years.
O and I continue on our way, stopping for lunch by the Hart Tree, the 24th largest sequoia, though how such things are catalogued I do not know. (We later learn at the Museum of the Forest that there are well over 2,000 Monarchs in this grove with trunks over 10 feet in diameter!) We realize we must move more quickly to complete the loop. Yesterday I saw a John Muir quote I hadn’t seen before:
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
How much more-so this applies to the space between two sequoias! And how much more magical the world beyond.
Tired and dusty, O and I complete our hike by about 4:30. We drive back to camp. Our neighbors across the way are very interested in how our hike went. We describe it in superlatives. They have decided to drive down Kings Canyon tomorrow. They are contemplating staying an extra day to do the Hart Loop, but they may save that for another visit. Easier for them – they are from California. As we seem to have interests in common they invite us over for conversation this evening but somehow we miss each other.