more Sequoia National Park, CA

Due to the crazy traffic, we entered the park very early so we were not late for our Crystal Cave tour at 10:30. Again I got the lecture of 'if you are late then you don't get a refund' blah, blah, blah! I'm not 2! We had almost two hours to spend so just enjoyed the beautiful views and trying to not injury ourselves on the rocks . . .
. . . we saw a lot of chipmunks running around but no deer or bears. We went to visit one of the large trees, The Sentinel.
It was time to head to the cave meeting point, which was very curvy and took a long time to get to the parking lot. The mosquitoes were terrible and driving us crazy; thankfully I had one of those Off Wipes that helped a little bit. We still had a downhill hike to the cave entrance which about half way down I realize it was going to be one hell of an uphill hike back after the tour . . . so not looking forward to that one! Anyway, there are hundreds of caves at Sequoia/Kings Canyon but this in the 'big' one that is open for tours . . .

. . . again photos don't take that well with my camera and it was amazing. Makes you wonder what else it out there undiscovered! The entrance gate is cool . . . looks like a spider web and the knob is a spider. Oh and the hike back up was a killer . . . a pure killer!

In addition to Sequoia National Park the area also includes Sequoia National Forest and Kings Canyon National Park. We spent a couple hours driving to and around Kings Canyon . . .
. . . you can only tell where one ends and the other starts by the signs posted. There was a difference in the vegetation when we drove to Kings Canyon and it was pretty in its own way. We took a break at Grizzly Falls . . .
. . . and turned around to head back to Sequoia where we stopped at Fallen Monarch . . .
. . . it was huge and tunneled out so you could walk inside without hitting your head. In the earlier days, these logs were used as shelter for humans and animals. The logs were sometimes hallowed out due to fire. It was pretty neat and the roots behind Colin's head were huge!

We checked out the General Grant which I think is the second largest but maybe third . . .


And here it is . . . The General Sherman . . . the BIG BOY of the trees . . . from a distance and up close; as close as one can get . . .

. . . the largest tree on Earth. It is not the tallest or widest but it has the most volume (52,500 cubic feet) and weighs (1,385 tons) the most. Pretty impressive and hard to even capture in a single frame. One last photo with the General Sherman before heading to the hotel for the night . . .
. . . Colin earned his Junior Ranger badge for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. Our hotel was inside the park which was SO nice at the end of the day . . .

. . . The Wuksachi Lodge had such a beautiful setting in the middle of the park. We were in the Sequoia Lodge room 324 and the view out of our window wasn't too shabby either . . .
By the end of the day we had seen:
deer: 3
bear: 0
squirrels: 5
chipmunks: ton