Once back on the road we followed the
highway alongside the Rocky Mountains for a ways, then took a turn
that delved deep into the mountains. After navigating ever more
convoluted roads we finally made it in to the park. Since we just
planned to drive through on our way to Yosemite, we decided just to
visit General Sherman in the Giant's Grove before making good our
escape.
The roads of the park wound along the
side of the mountains with nothing but incredibly stubborn trees
clinging to bare rock on one side, and a precipitous drop to the
other. It's an incredible sensation almost like flying being only
feet from nothing but a several hundred foot drop to the valley floor
below. However, it didn't take long for the view on the other side of
the car to eclipse the feeling of flight, because we soon came upon
the namesake trees of the park. Colossal barely begins to describe
the sequoias that occasionally dotted the side of the road in sparse
groves. The car could easily have driven through the base of their
trunks, and their gnarled branches dwarfed even the normal sized
trees that surrounded the giants.
Almost an hour into our drive through
the surprisingly expansive park, we came to the Giant's Grove, where
General Sherman, the largest tree in the world, resides. Although a
few trees in the world may be wider or taller, General Sherman is the
most massive, holding the largest volume of wood of any other, and
still growing. To stand next to the tree is to feel like an ant only
barely able to see its skyward extent. As if the incredible size of
the trees wasn't enough, even more awe-inspiring is their age.
General Sherman is 2,200 years old, and not even the oldest of the
sequoias. To be around a living thing that has lived longer than a
large portion of civilized humanity is humbling to say the least.
We wandered through the garden of
impossible trees for a little while before heading back to the car to
make our way to Yosemite. Before we made it too far out of the park,
however, we stumbled upon a grizzly bear crossing the road. We
stopped to check it out (from the safety of the running car) as it
went about its business without offering us a second glance. By then
the sun had nearly set, and we were unfortunately faced with another
night drive.
In general I hate night driving because
it offers little in the way of views, and especially if I'm traveling
through a place I've never seen I inevitably feel as if I've missed
something noteworthy. Nonetheless we left the dark forest behind us
to dip out of the mountains for a spell before winding our way back
up into them as we neared Yosemite.
Not having learned our lesson from the
camping situation in the Grand Canyon, we neglected to solidify our
campsite before embarking. To our credit, though, all of the reserved
sites were filled before we checked them, and the documentation we
found was vague on the status of first-come first-served camping.
Regardless of who was at fault, we ended up driving around Yosemite,
this time knowing we were missing out on spectacular views since the
moon was bright enough to unsatisfactorily sample them for us. A few
hours, and dozens of miles later, we found a parking spot in an
inconspicuous location and-- you guessed it!-- slept in the car.
No comments:
Post a Comment