Epic Road Trip 2017 - Day #9

Today we left Bakersfield, California and headed for Sequoia National Park.  We visited Sequoia in 2010, but didn't get a chance to see as much as we wanted then because we were there for less than a day.  It was only a couple of hours to the park and we stopped for gas and some food for supper at the Squaw Valley Food Mart.  After Squaw Valley, we started our climb from about 2000 feet of elevation to our campsite that was at 6700 feet.  Just before you come into the west side of the park, there is a place called Cat Haven (see below).

We came up into the park and marveled at the height of the "regular" trees, much less the sequoias themselves.

We stayed at Dorst Creek campground.  We made it to our campsite around 1pm and had leftovers from the previous night's pasta dinner.  We ate, then put up our tent and put all our food items in the bear-proof box.

Next, we visited the Lodgepole Visitor Center that had lots of educational items, gift shops, and food options.  We watched a video on the bears of Sequioa and how it has been tough to transition from a time 50-70 years ago when people were feeding the bears to trying to keep them safe and out of campsites.  Then we headed to the Giant Forest Museum to learn more about Sequoia trees and buy our souvenir stickers.  There we met up with a ranger that told us about the Hazelwood Nature Trail and how awesome it was.  We went on the hike straight from the Giant Forest Visitor Center and it was great!  We got to see lots of Sequoias and it was very secluded and quiet compared to some of the other places in the park.

Also in the area was the Big Trees Trail, that was a group of Sequoias surrounding a meadow.  There were lots of informational signs that taught us a lot about these local trees and the park in general.

 After these hikes, we headed back to our campsite and had a dinner of breakfast burritos.  It was a great day and we are looking forward to seeing lots more of the park tomorrow.


What We Learned: Today we learned about Cat Haven, brought to you by Project Survival.  It is a conservation project for wild cats that lets visitors come and see the cats.  They take in cats that are either born in captivity, not able to be cared for by their owners, or orphaned in the wild.

For the day we traveled 179.5 miles and saw license plates from 31 states, Sonora, 2 Canadian Provinces, and a small RV that was from the Czech Republic!