Are you excited to see a forest full of gigantic trees, a phenomenon which makes you realize how powerful the nature is and we all are just teeny-tiny creatures, and we should always respect Mother Nature! When I planned Sequoia national park; it was just to see the famous General Sherman: by volume, the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth. But when I actually went there, the area is full of such huge trees, and it was fascinating.
I planned one day trip to do both the parks. If you are traveling from San Francisco airport, then it is a 4 hours’ drive. We traveled from New Jersey to San Francisco and traveled to Lemon Cove and stayed at Plantation bread and breakfast for the night. This place is awesome. Lisa is such a sweet hostess. She makes best breakfast. There was so much variety in the breakfast and on top of that she accommodated our special request of breakfast carousel with no meat in it. Orange juice was the best juice I ever had.
We started our day around 8:00 AM and headed to Sequoia Park.
Park entrance fee: $35 per vehicle. This fee grants entry for both Sequoia and Grand Canyon parks. For more details, please click here.
Best time to visit: Summer and fall (portions of the park are closed from November till April)
We visited following attractions:
Giant Forest National Museum
The museum is a place for information about Giant Sequoia and trails in the park. We got very good insights about General Sherman. This tree has survived so many fires. Rangers were extremely helpful. There was also a small gift shop.
Moro Rock
Moro Rock is a dome shaped mountain hill. There are 350 concrete and stone steps which leads to the top of the Moro Rock. View of Moro rock and from the Moro rock are fantastic. We enjoyed this hike. The hike starts from the parking area of Giant Forest National Museum.
Tunnel Log
It is a tunnel which is carved on the trunk of sequoia tree which was fallen over the road. It was fun to drive though this tunnel. Please check below picture.
Big Tree trail
Big Trees Trail is a paved nature trail circling 0.8 miles beneath towering sequoias along the edges of Round Meadow. For me this was one of the highlights of the park as you see so many sequoias everywhere and there are good signs describing about trees you are seeing. Also, the trail was quite easy.
General Sherman
And here comes the main attraction of the park the giant of all sequoias. There was a huge line of tourists to take picture with the tree. But worth the wait. “After all you haven’t done it if you don’t have picture with it” 😛
General Grant Grove
The General Grant tree is the largest giant sequoia in the General Grant Grove section of Kings Canyon National Park and the second largest tree in the world. President Coolidge proclaimed it the Nation’s Christmas tree in 1926. On this trail we also saw Fallen Monarch, a hollow, downed sequoia where you can actually walk inside the dead tree. It was fun. See the below picture.
From Kings canyon national park, we headed to Yosemite national park. But on our way, we did stop for photo ops near Junction View and Canyon view. Both the viewpoints give amazing sights of the mountains.
