Big Ol' Trunks

I wake up to a gorgeous morning. Since the ranger station won’t open until 9, and I got up around 6:30, I’m able to enjoy the sunrise from my spot. It was a cold morning, and it took me a while to defrost the condensation from the inside of my car. In the meantime, I just pulled out the ol’ sleeping bag, drape it over myself, and stand on a rock watching the sun come up over Mount Baldy.

I’d slept great, since the spot I was in was perfectly hidden- bushes blocking the view of/from oncoming traffic in either direction except for one spot in the center where they would have already be turned sideways to me. Combine that with the fact that there wasn’t any traffic overnight and I was uninterrupted.

I head to the ranger station, get my pack and gear ready, and wait for them to open. I grab my back country permit, the obligatory bear container (for the food, not actually for the bear) and a topo map, and I’m off to the trail. I’m not sure what condition it will be in, and the rangers said that the road to the trail head likely hasn’t been plowed. If it’s not, that’s gonna add three miles overall to my trip. I’m hoping it’s plowed.

It’s not. It’s a back mountain road, hasn’t been plowed but people have been driving on it. I check it out. It looks like some 4x4's have been down it, but there’s still a lot of deep snow troughs. The roads steep- in spots I’m sure the grade was well of 8%, and it’s icy. I’m driving a little Kia Spectra, and I don’t even have snow tires- just all season tires well rated for snow and ice, and I don’t know what condition the rest of the road is in. It would be foolish, to say the least, of me to try this.

It takes me about five minutes to get to the trail head. The parking lot is in even worse condition than the road had been, but I find a high spot where the sun has melted the snow down. Slorp some canned venison , toss the pack on, and put food to trail.

The route I was taking was overall a 10 mile loop encircling Redwood Canyon. I plan to camp at the bottom of the valley among the sequoia grove by the river. The trail info sign says that you can do it as two shorter loops, or one long one. If you choose the latter, expect to be in for a long day hike. Since I’m short on daylight, it being January and all, I figure that the midway point will be a good goal.

About a hundred yards in I’m convinced I’m going to die. It’s not too steep uphill, but I am walking through a foot of snow with no broken trail to follow (though it was quite nice being the only footprints on the trail). I’m huffing and puffing and sweating, and chiding myself for having done nothing to physically prep for the trip. Nonetheless, I’m a creature of inertia, and once I was on trail I just kept moving. Fortunately, there were enough spots I wanted pictures that I usually didn’t need to stop just to catch my breath.

Giant sequoias are HUGE. They’re not as tall a redwoods, but seem so much more impressive. I mean, it kinda tough to really notice the difference between a 280' tall tree and a 310' tree, but it’s really easy to notice the difference between a 10' diameter tree and a 20' diameter tree.

I tried, but I just couldn’t get a picture to do any justice to the size of these trees. Needless to say, I was just in a daze wondering at these trees. I did notice, however, that unlike in the redwoods I wasn’t having the same fantastical images popping into my mind- no dinosaurs, elves, or ewoks this time. Maybe it was just because I was winding down, but I really think it was because the trees were just so impressive to me in their own right.

Well, I hate to cut if off here, but this is gonna be a loooong post if I don’t wrap it up. I’ll finish day seven tomorrow.