Finally I got Sequoia National Park. I intended to head up the road to Mineral King but a mile or two up I decided against it and headed up park's main road. I grabbed a site at the first campground I came to, $18 in low elevation scrub. A foothills ecosystem. It was a good site and the campground was very quiet at midday, but it was also very gnatty. I asked a park attendant when the gnats died down and he said “November”.
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| Foothills ecosystem - Potwisha Campground |
I pitched my tent and drove up toward the Big Trees, back up a narrow winding road with not nearly enough turnouts to view the scenery. The biggest turnout featured two rangers pulling out rifles so I gave that one a pass. I never did learn what that was all about.
My first stop up top was the showers at the Visitors Center. It was 3:00PM, lucky because they closed the showers from 1 to 3 for cleaning. Showers were $3.25 and you needed 13 quarters! My patience sort of slippid and I was cursing out in the parking lot (I hadn't eaten lunch), but I managed. As it happens I forgot to bring in my towel so I dried off with my dirty underwear. Ha! But the air was so dry I dried off almost instantly.
I went into the Ranger Station to calm down a little, and had an interesting chat with the ranger issuing backcountry permits over whether bear boxes and pit toilets should be allowed in the wilderness. We both agreed they should. Apparently someone is suing the park service over bear boxes and they might get yanked. And then I submitted a written suggestion that the showers have a 5 minute two dollar option and that they also switch to tokens. Finally I had some lunch at a picnic table and then only then did I go down to see the main attraction, the General Sherman tree.
After an early dinner I took a walk along a one-mile nature trail around Round Meadow near the Big Tree Museum. The late afternoon, early evening sun really brings the bright orange of the Giant Sequoias. Plus for some reason all the visitors disappear from the trails between 5 and 7 PM. I suspect alcohol. The trail is a long oblong around a lush meadow, with many superb trees throughout. Good educational signs to read as well.
Soon I spotted a bear heading out of the woods heading in the direction of the trail. It was another juvenile, Boo Boo II if you will, old enough to be on its own but not very big. I was thinking three year old, but I don't know enough about bears to say for sure. I yelled loudly so it would know I was around, but either it was deaf as a rock or just inured to human voices. Given the proximity to the road and the visiting facilities, I suspected the latter. It proceeded to join the trail about 40 yards ahead of me. I stopped and watched taking a couple of pictures in the process. They will not make National Geographic.
It went into some bushes for a while so I waited it out, and then it just started lollygagging on down the trail, and I followed at a respectful distance. It was pretty funny, because this little bear really was acting like some little kid wandering around, attending to whatever caught its attention for however long it did. I couldn't tell if it was eating or exploring or what it was doing. But it soon entered the meadows where I could no longer see it, and I resumed my nature walk. About a quarter more around the circle, it reappeared and I watched it meander some more before it cut off into the woods for good.
A few minutes later I spooked a nice big deer buck, big antlers and all. (You have to remember, this is in a beautiful Giant Sequoia meadow at right around sundown - very sweet.) The buck bolted but then stopped 40 feet away and studied me, as I studied it: a stalemate, and another hazy photo. I was kinda' hoping it would settle down again when a huge shotgun-like explosion rang out a bit down the meadow, startling us both. This was enough for the buck; it was gone. I went down the trail to see what the noise was, and soon saw, maybe 50 yards away, a big burly cinnamon-colored bear (all bears in California, regardless of color, are Black Bears; Grizzlies were wiped out 85 years ago or so), having just turned over an enormous downed log, clearly the cause of the explosion. These creatures are strong. And next to the big gal was a little black bear: Mom was showing the youngun' how to stay alive in the woods. I watched for only a moment as I do greatly respect the "mothers with cubs" rule. Not so much that I feared it would charge, really, but if she saw me they'd split and I didn't want to disrupt this education. So I reversed direction and walked the 3/4 of the trail back the way I came. Three bears and a buck: not a bad turnout for a one-mile nature stroll.
I got out just as afterglow was backlighting the smoke from fires. One nearby fire had forced the closing of Crystal Cave and the John Muir Grove. I drove back to my campground in the gloaming, listening to John Luther Adams. Busy day.
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Firey sunset
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