Sequoia and Don Pedro Lake

Hi there,

Hello everyone, I am sitting in the tent at the beautiful Don Pedro Lake watching the sunrise. Actually we would be in Yosemite Valley right now, but due to a storm and heavy rainfalls it is closed and we spontaneously planned something new.

But first a short review on the last two days... After so far we haven't spent two nights in the same place , we decided to lower the speed for a short moment and only travel from Lone Pine around Mount Whitney to Tulare and stay there for 2 nights in a row in the same place to visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon and then drive on to Yosemite Valley.

The drive to Tulare was wonderful, after all the stony and desert-like stages I was so excited to see trees and green meadows again. And because it was our recovery day, we took our time. At the small Lake Isabella we spontaneously got pizza from the neighboring village and we finally cracked our coconut, which we have been driving around since day 1. Our loyal companion, the folding spade was once again the key to success. After that we continued over mountains through the forest past holiday cottages and forest huts as well as cow pastures. As soon as we crossed the mountain, the road to Tulare was lined with plantations: orange and apple trees as far as the eye could see. These were then replaced by vineyard until we finally arrived in Tulare.

Unsere Kokosnuss!!!

Mittagsstopp: Lake Isabella

The next morning we set off for Sequoia National Park to admire the largest trees on earth. (For the first time we didn't have to pack all our stuff but could just leave everything there in the room - sounds strange, but that was incredibly beautiful!) Good that we had hiking boots, winter clothes and crampons with us. Unfortunately, when I got out of the car I was convinced that we certainly don't need them. So we started with sneakers and sweaters. When it started with the rain and we had to walk over slippery snow surfaces we had already walked too far to turn back... But the path got better again and the rain decreased. And there they were: thousand-year-old trees, approx. 80 metres high and up to 12 metres in perimeter. Some of the trees had big "burn marks", super interesting to learn that the Sequoia trees (that's their name) use forest fires as an opportunity: When a fire hits the trees, normal trees die, but a large Sequoia tree gets hurt, but it does not kill it. So when the trees around it are dead, they won't take away the light and the water and the Sequoia tree can grow even more. For many years it then heals its wounds and lets bark grow over the fire wounds. A clear case for "What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger" 😉

At another stop we were smarter and started with hiking boots and rain jacket - actually we wanted to hike here but the trail was closed. Here we are a bit doomed that we travel in the low season, because many things are still in repair or simply are not open yet. Nevertheless, we examined the largest tree on earth, the General Sherman Tree and hiked until the roadblock. But as the weather became worse and worse and the rain more and more, our ambitions were not too big to continue our cross-country hike. We went then still further into the Kings Canyon by car, but since in the meantime everything was foggy, we started the way back without further hikes or walks. A nice ending were then three sweet deer, which appeared all at once beside us.

Der größte Baum der Welt: General Sherman Tree

The next morning we had to check the weather forecast and see what the storm warning for Yosemite Valley was doing. Well, it turned out it was not only a short spook from the day before but lasted until at least Sunday. So we decided to approach Yosemite National Park but stay further west, where we escape the storm. And that's how by chance we got to a beautiful road trip day. The tank stop in Fresno was also interesting here. We took a random exit and landed in a rather dodgy area. Actually, you didn't even notice that you were in the USA anymore, because nobody bothered to write down the names of the shops etc. in English. So we drove through the neighbourhood, past many homeless people, dubious groups and figures (for example, a man cleaned his nails with his Butterfly knife). Here we didn't want to shop, so we drove on until the area got a little better and then we dedicated ourselves to filling up and buying water and went on.

Highway 140 from Fresno towards Merced and then the road to Mariposa is lined with huge pastures with very few cows and bulls. (Here you can eat a steak with a clear conscience.) Contrary to expectations, our road trip was accompanied by the best sunshine. Here is a small impression of the area:

And finally (after 3 futile attempts due to closed roads) and passing an illustrious ranch, where a long-horned buffalo, a llama, a donkey and a (hold on!) zebra grazed on the pasture and a top avocado deal (20 avocados for 5 dollars), which we could not resist, we arrived at Don Pedro Lake.

And finally we could pitch our tent again, the nights in the hotel were nice and necessary, but setting up a tent directly at the lake shore and making a campfire is somehow nicer. After the tent stood, we first had to gather firewood, the only difficulty was that it had rained here the day before and everything was relatively wet. After we didn't get too far with our matches and newspapers, the gas burner had to serve as a flamethrower... A somewhat dubious way to make fire, but the only thing that helped yesterday. I already had lost hope but finally our wood caught fire and burned cheerfully (Note: all our fires are classically small and smoke like stupid, I am not yet sure whether it is because of the stuff that we throw in (fir cones, branches, bark - everything that's just lying around) or if it's the construction itself... - We still have a few bondfire evenings to find out). Last night was the first night we didn't have to freeze. I had already completely forgotten how beautiful camping can be, if the temperature isn't below zero degrees... And since we learn only at around noon whether Yosemite is re-opened, we now start the morning very calmly at our beautiful camping site.