Sequoia National Park

We left Ridgecrest, CA in the morning and plugged the coordinates for Sequoia National Park into our trusty GPS, which thus far, had been completely accurate. What we didn't know this time, was that the entrance our GPS took us to, was closed in the off season. So after spending a long time driving up the side of a mountain, we arrived at a metal barrier, chained and locked, accross the paved road entrance. So we had to doubleback down the same road, which was a nice drive with beautiful vistas, but we lost a lot of daylight time.











Finally we made it to the Ash Mountain entrance which is open year round...


The first place we stopped, we saw a group of people gathered and pointing at something...bears!
Mama Bear...


...and Baby Bear...


Back on the road...deer...


Spunky couldn't resist the photo op...


further down the road, more deer...




We drove on Generals Highway through Sequoia on our way to see General Sherman - the largest tree on earth




you can't drive all the way to General Sherman, so we parked at the entrance to the Giant Forest walking trail and started walking...


Spunky enjoyed his promenade through the giant redwoods






Unfortunately, by the time we got to General Sherman, it was getting pretty dark and as we were in the middle of a forest, there weren't any lights. The photo doesn't do justice to how large this tree is.




Although we saw more great stuff and the rest of the drive was beautiful, it was just too dark for anymore pictures.