Wald's World On Wheels: Sequoia National Park, CA

Visiting the Giant Sequoia Redwoods in California was on of my top priorities on this trip. After 10 months on the road traveling across the country we finally made it to California, home of the Giant Sequoias. There are multiple national parks in California that have these massive trees. Sequoia National Park is home of the largest tree by shear volume, the General Sherman.

The drive from the park entrance to the giant redwoods is a narrow, winding switchback up 7,000 vertical feet to the top, where the giants grow. My kids are great car riders and have been tremendous this entire trip, but the drive to the top of the mountain may have pushed their limits. The winding road made everyone in the car a little queasy and they were more than excited to make it to the top.

The trees are 2-3 thousand years old and are the most amazing trees that I have ever seen. There are plenty of well maintained and scenic trials around the park. The hike to the General Sherman was by far the most popular in the park. It was so busy as a matter of fact that we needed to wait in line to have our picture taken in front of this giant.

Of all the hikes we did through the park my most favorite was the trail of giants. It was a very easy hike for the kids and allowed us to get up close to dozens of the large trees.

At the end of the day I was very impressed and the Giant Sequoias did not disappoint!

...a little disappointing that we can only get a fraction of the tree. It just doesn't do it justice, but we tried!

...still couldn't get the whole tree...

I tried everything, but I just couldn't get the whole tree!

Sunny doesn't get much face time on the blog. Here she is with her head out the window.

At the Trial of 100 Giants

All of the kids hanging out in the rotted out center of a fallen tree.

I don't know why, but this builder nestled up against the redwood just seemed interesting.

This was a lookout point about 3/4 up the mountain.

This tree is known as Auto Log. It was carved out on the top and they used to allow vehicles to drive across the topside of the tree. This is a picture of the root system of the tree.