Sequioa National Park 2

Delayed at breakfast (unsurprising cause breakfast buffet was free) - went through the Ranger station at 09:30 - Ranger said we can't make it to roadworks as it takes 45mins from there - after some blistering driving we got at the roadworks at 10:00 - yay! But not, as the car clock was slow by 3 minutes and we missed it by that margin :-( The ranger at the roadworks told us we'd find some trails to amuse us (for the next 2 hours that we had to wait) at Big Fern Springs - just a bit below the roadworks site, so that's where we went.

It was actually very lovely - being forced to spend some time in this serene and beautiful place can never be a bad thing. The ferns lived upto their names, you can see their length in comparison with our car in the picture below.

Wondered what a "bear proof" trash can looks like? That's how (looks like it's Arijit proof too - glad we didn't have anything to throw in - would have been a chore to figure out)

The "trail" wasn't really one - around 20m from the start to the falls.

On the other side of the road - a thin forest of ferns - pretty tall ones.

Almost time for the pass - so we headed back up and had to wait for a few minutes. I guessed this might be the "ampitheatre point" (as all signs had been removed) judging by the wonderful view of the high Sierras from this location.

We could also see a bit of the winding road we had taken to reach up till here.

The pass was right on time - first the cars waiting to go up started behind a pilot car driven by a ranger. When we reached the top the pilot car turned around to bring back the cars waiting there. In the space of a miles of the pass the change in temperature was dramatic - from the warm sunny to snowy and cold within a few minutes. Tire chain restrictions were at R2 but having a 4 wheel drive with snow tires we didn't have to put on chains. There was a fair amount amout of snow on the roads and it shadowy turns the slush had frozen. After a few miles we arrived at the General Sherman winter parking spot. The tree itself was 5 mins walk away. The trails passes through (yes through) a fallen giant Sequioa - a tunnel was carved in the trunk over 6' in diameter - I didn't have to bend to walk through - amazing! And then suddenly there it was - the biggest tree in the whole world!

Our minds cannot comprehend the size of this tree - especially since it's uniformly big (not just tall - the branches are huge too), also it's surrounded by reasonably big trees. So spot the man at the base of the tree.

And it was by no means alone there - this is called the Forest of Giants for a reason....

Continuing along the trail - a cross section of a fallen Sequioa

And compare the cross section size with us!

The snow on the ground made it all feel extra magical. Sushmita said she felt like she was in the Lord of the Rings books - a little hobbit amonst the Ents.

And to think that these giants grow from these tiny tiny cones - around the size of a golf ball! Actually the spores inside the cone are smaller still!

The trails looped to another view point of the General Sherman tree. Actually the top of the tree is dead now - so it's not growing any taller, the trunk however is living and every year increases in width (and therefore volume) of the order of a big tree! Again spot the people at the base of the tree.

The trail ended back at the base of the tree

Another sequioa(s) we spotted was 3 trees in one!

And that was it, would have loved to spend a few days just wandering about, but we had places to go - so we took the next pass down through the roadworks, returned the chains, collected our luggage back from the hotel, had a quick lunch in the car and set out towards Death Valley.

... and that's when our Garmin started playing tricks - as mentioned earlier, I was wishing we could reach Lone Pine (or thereabouts) so that's where we set our destination. So it took us down highway 65 through Exeter (the US one of course), but suddenly turned us left onto Ave56 - now though we were heading towards the mountain and the sun was was going down, I didn't mind as the road was straight as an arrow - however that started to change - as we hit the Sierras again - right about sunset! What luck! So we took Jack Ranch road down towards Lake Isabella but when we hit highway 155 we decided to take the road out of the mountains towards Bakerfield instead of into the mountains to Lake Isabella as we were already driving for over 5 hr at that point. Reached Bakersfield quite late - checked into the Holiday Inn Express cause it was very near the highway and would aid in getting out quickly tomorrow morning. Some quick Mexican and I slept like a log.