California Baseball: Day 8
Kings Canyon National Park
With the California League teams on an All-Star break in San Bernardino, Danny and I planned a two-day hiatus from baseball to visit two national parks in the southern Sierra Nevada: Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park, both home to groves of giant sequoias that contain the largest trees in the world.
Today’s focus would be Kings Canyon, about an hour east of Fresno. We got an early start and drove towards the morning sun rising over the mountains to bring another hot day to the Central Valley farmland. We listened to a podcast about the making of Star Wars, then switched over to Song Exploder, a podcast about the making of music — little bits of fun for Danny on the road.
Our route along Highway 180 took us past strips of wild sunflowers, with all of their vivid beauty, blooming now in summer across much of California.
The Hyundai climbed up into the Sierra Nevada and soon passed through the entrance to Kings Canyon. Originally named General Grant National Park when it opened in 1890, Kings Canyon was renamed and expanded in 1940, and now covers more than 460,000 acres of wilderness. The park includes the second largest tree in the world by volume: the General Grant Tree.
Our first stop, just inside the park boundary, was Big Stump Trail, a two-mile loop through a sequoia forest with verdant meadows and trickling streams, ending at a giant stump. The trail was easy and full of beauty, with the morning sun piercing the canopy at attractive angles. The mountain weather, after several days of searing heat in the Central Valley, was perfectly pleasant. The air that filled our lungs as we hiked was fresh and alive. It was good to be in Kings Canyon.
This big stump in question is the Mark Twain Tree, cut down in 1891 by two men working with saws for nearly two weeks. It was a true giant, at 331 feet high and with a circumference of 90 feet at its base. The sequoias had just been “discovered” by Europeans a few decades earlier, and many did not believe the tales coming out of distant California of ancient forest giants. And so, the 1,350-year-old Mark Twain Tree was sacrificed — with massive cross-sections sent to natural history museums in New York and London — to provide proof of the majesty of these living things.
We then drove about 10 minutes further into the park to our next stop, General Grant Grove, home of the second-largest tree in the world. A paved trail from the parking lot leads first through a series of other impressive sequoia specimens. One of them, now dead, lays on its side, hollowed out enough to allow visitors to pass through. Danny posed for a photo in front of the entrance, then stepped inside the tree. Just as he emerged out the other end, Danny — already annoyed by flies buzzing in his face — bonked his head inside the tree and let out a sudden and rather shocking expletive that seemed to echo for minutes through the otherwise quiet forest.
I glanced at my fellow tourists sheepishly, embarrassed for us all. One couple shook their heads and tsked disapprovingly. Had they known that Danny is on the Autistic spectrum, that people like him have a very minimal natural social awareness, that the flies and gnats that had bothered him just before this accident are in fact an obsession of his — the high-pitched buzzing and erratic flight playing on his senses like fingernails on a chalkboard — had they known any of this, well… it still would have been a very disturbing and offensive noise, unpleasant for anyone. They can’t be blamed for not knowing who he is, or how far he has come. Knowing it might engender a little sympathy for someone who had just whacked his skull against a tree. But there is nothing to be done in these situations but to gather ourselves and move on.
We continued our walk amongst more incredible giant sequoias. What makes these trees so extraordinary is not merely their height or width but the overwhelming feeling of pure mass they convey. The trunk barely narrows as the sequoia ascends to the sky. Branches on the older trees often begin nearly 200 feet above ground, helping to emphasize the thick, sturdy nature of the trunk, like a tall tower come to life.
When we approached the General Grant Tree, we heard a ranger nearby giving some of the highlights of this outstanding sequoia. It is estimated to be 1,650 years old, beginning life before the fall of the Roman Empire. The General stands more than 267 feet tall and is nearly 29 feet wide at its base. Its circumference at the ground is more than 107 feet. At 180 feet off the ground, it still has a diameter of nearly 13 feet. The volume of the trunk alone is 46,608 cubic feet. It is a very large living thing.
We pressed on from General Grant Grove, driving up a nearby peak to Kings Canyon Panoramic Point. After a short hike, we looked east from the viewpoint to see the peaks of the High Sierra, still capped with substantial snowfall. In the foreground below was Hume Lake, where we would look for lunch. Between the two was the mile-deep, 45-mile-long Kings Canyon, carved out by glaciers during two separate Ice Ages that began about 2.5 million years ago.
There aren’t a ton of dining options inside any national park, but I had spotted Pondy Pizza & Pizookie on the map a few weeks before our trip. Next to scenic Hume Lake, it seemed like the perfect place for a quick bite on a day when we would do about five hours of driving. I had also noticed that there was apparently a Christian Camp at the lake.
What I didn’t realize is that this time of year, virtually every inch of the area around Hume Lake is devoted to the campers. We arrived to find what seemed like thousands of young people, many in matching camp t-shirts, moving in every direction around the lake. After considerable time poking around for parking, we found a space and did manage to get a nice slice of pizza amongst the cheerful hubbub. And of course, Danny would not be denied a pizookie — a large, warm, chocolate-chip cookie topped with vanilla ice cream.
After lunch, we headed south on Ten Mile Road for about, um, 10 miles, winding cheerfully through the mountains and down to Quail Flat and the main highway. From there, we went east into Sequoia National Park. Our hotel for two nights was on the other side of the park, and we would just pass through today before touring it fully tomorrow.
As Danny began to nod off in the passenger seat, I spotted a rush of water sliding over slick rock surfaces, tumbling down the mountain to our left, then continuing under the highway in a rapid descent. Clover Creek, this ribbon of sudden activity in the quiet mountains, was mesmerizing, not just for the coolness and the splashing and the sense of relentless, natural intent. It was the curious colors and shapes of the scene. Algae grew in large fissures of the flat rock that cradled the creek, and it gave a green tint to the water itself. There were lines in every direction — cracks in the rock, rows of algae, streaks of water, and the river itself, pushing through it all.
We continued for another 55 miles to the other end of the park and checked into the Buckeye Tree Lodge & Cabins in the City of Three Rivers. The lodge is located on the biggest of those rivers, the Kaweah, which was positively cascading with noise and tumult when we arrived.
As the Golden Hour approached, we ate dinner at the neighboring Gateway Restaurant & Lodge, right on the river, a setting that felt animated by intense beauty.