LA bound...: Sequoia National Park

The General Sherman

A deer outside our lodge.
Probably looking in dismay
at the smudged lens

Since our arrival in California back in June 2012, we’ve yearned to visit one of the many state parks here. In fact, I bought a book on Yosemite during our early weeks settling into LA. Well, this summer, we didn’t go as far as Yosemite, but did manage to spend a few days in Sequoia National Park.

Sequoia Park is a few hours drive North of Los Angeles; it makes up the southern part of the wilderness area that encompasses Kings Canyon and Yosemite. As we climbed high up into the park, we got to our lodgings which sit at 7000 feet. We didn’t camp because neither Richard nor I know much about camping. We figured one of would need to know what they’re doing. In fact, I’m confident that Ananya probably knows more about outdoor living than we do!

Ananya and Richard at the General Grant tree

But the lodge was lovely and provided a base for us to explore this wonderful area, full of the biggest trees the world has ever seen. It is estimated that the oldest Sequoias are over 3000 years old. The biggest of them all is the ‘General Sherman’, which as you can imagine, is a big tourist destination so we didn’t get a lot of time to appreciate its splendour. The General Sherman measures over 36 feet wide at its base, and 275 feet tall.

We took advantage of the child-friendly trails and explored the area known as the Giant Forest. Ananya was in her ‘stick gathering’ element, which also meant quite a few splinters in her hands. Three months on, the main memory she’s come away with from our trip to see the ‘big trees’ is when mummy had to remove the ‘wood in the hand’...