California Odyssey part III, May 22-23
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:42 am
One of the things I have always wanted to do is camp under Giant Sequoias. Camping in Redwood Canyon in SEKI was the last trip on my abbreviated menu. Driving up to the park I scouted the Generals Highway and found the road to Redwood Saddle and the TH had not been opened. Not to worry a turnout was fortunately located right where the ridge up from the saddle meets the highway. A quick trip to Grant resulted in a permit and soon after I was striding down mostly snowfree slopes. In 20 minutes or so I reached the TH.
The hike to my campsite was about 3 miles and at no time was a Sequoia not visible. It was a humbling experience hiking among these giants. As I got lower the snow increased, I assume due to the the reduced slope, increased canopy, and cold air dumping into the canyon.
I noticed 2 pairs of people tracks in the snow that seemed to wander quite a bit. Once I followed them and they led to a tagged tree so I assumed they were the tracks of someone doing research. There were several fallen giants across the trail (which is really an old road for a mile and a half or so). These were intriguing in their own right.
With my intent just to soak up the ambiance of the canyon I soon made camp amongst a family of 4 sequoia. I spent a long time eyeballing the limbs way up in the trees before deciding that the risk of getting clobbered by a falling limb was pretty low. As you can see in the pic below the trees had been pretty well pruned during the winter and the fact that there were no newly fallen limbs a my chosen tent site suggested that everything above was pretty solid (or ready to fall?). The duff was so thick an unconsolidated that I had procure some rocks from the creek to secure my tent stakes and there were a lot of sequoia cones that had to be cleared to eliminate significant bumps under my downmat.
After setting up camp I decided to see what kind of fish were in Redwood Creek. An Elkhair Caddis tempted several small rainbows but the most interesting part of the fishing was the large collections of ladybugs along the creek. I have seen more massive collections before (10 ft. long log covered several inches thick) but never dispersed over such a long distance. I made what turned out to be the funniest movie I have ever made but don't have a clue how to make the 17 meg movie available. Soon I returned to camp for summer sausage, cheese, and daiquiris.
It stayed dry over night and was bright in the morning but soon clouded up for the trip out. At higher elevations the trees were draped in a curtain of fog.
I was kind of disappointed I didn't see a bear but there were tracks near my camp when I arrived and there were bear tracks on top of mine for a short distance as I retraced my route on the way out.
Lesson learned. While we all long for the High Sierra, without undo risk and effort there are many neglected low and mid elevation places we can seek out and find solitude and beauty. Just need to think outside the box.
I finished up my California trip with brief visits to old SEKI friends, one I hadn't seen since 1990 and neither of us recognized the other at first.
Thanks for reading!
Mike
Lesson learned. While we all long for the High Sierra, without undo risk and effort there are many neglected low and mid elevation places we can seek out and find solitude and beauty. Just need to think outside the box.
I finished up my California trip with brief visits to old SEKI friends, one I hadn't seen since 1990 and neither of us recognized the other at first.
Thanks for reading!
Mike