Laborious Day

Hello again, world, how are you holding up after the gratuitous holiday weekend? Myself, I'm thanking my lucky stars that I was able to make it through this holiday relatively unscathed after a harrowing vacationous outing to enjoy the giant redwoods of Sequoia National Park. Being skeptical that all things would rightly come together given the nature of every trip we take together as friends, things panned out in a handsome fashion. We took hikes, we took pictures, and we took our opportunity to soil the landscape with our human presence and scare the living daylights out of whatever natural creatures roamed the forest.

Not that we did this on purpose mind you, just the fact that we were a group of 14 young, loud people should be enough to scare anyone.

There are several things about camping that I really enjoy: the clean air, the beautiful aspect of untouched natural land, and the fact that you can escape from the city for at least a few days before you begin to miss it. Sequoia is a good place to go for all of these things, and if you've never been there, you have to go at least once in your life just to say you've stood next to one of the largest naturally occurring phenomena on the planet earth. Majestic some would say, just another tree others would say, but all I really have to say is, "wow." Profound, huh?



Hiking through the park was nice, and although there are several longer, tougher, and probably suicidal hikes one can take, we took some fairly modest treks. One, to the top of Moro Rock, overlooking the Valley, another to Eagle View, which is an astonishing 71 miles from Mt. Whitney, and another through the Crescent Meadow to Tharp's Log. The journey to the top of Moro Rock was not terribly difficult, but breathing the thin air could be described as such. A few steps up the side of the rock, and people were hyper-ventilating as if we'd just sprinted a good 100 meters. 442 steps the top is what the park ranger said, so like I mentioned, not difficult, but the view was awesome. We stopped for a while and took numerous photos, and as was the theme of the weekend, we took a group photo.



The hike through Crescent Meadow to both Eagle View and Tharp's Log was peaceful, to say the least. We didn't catch any wildlife unawares while we were about, but did get to see what kind of life Tharp made for himself in his literal log cabin. His hollowed out Sequoia home sat at the foot of the meadow and made for a good spot for both himself and his livestock as it sat next to a stream. From there some of us split off for another pre-dusk hike, while the rest of us opted to clean the grime and relax before dinner.



Our last day was spent climbing down the valley to get a look at the Crystal Caves. The 1/2 mile down wasn't any trouble, but hiking back up wearing layers of clothing surely had us lose 10 pounds in sweat. Peering at underground rock formations may not seem to be everyone's cup of tea, and the tour itself was pretty standard, but knowing these formations had been over 1 million years in the making, and the fact that their natural beauty was quite a thing to behold made the Crystal Cave hike worth it. Buy advanced tickets and make sure you dress light, but warmly.



In the end, it was a good trip. I enjoyed myself, and everyone else seemed to have a great time even if it was their first ever camping experience. Being the third largest state means that California has plenty of land, and it's quite amazing that between such great cities in the north and south can exist beautiful displays of untouched nature.