Sequoia - sun and snow

Oz and I were lucky enough to get a space on the Excursion clubs Sequoia National Park and last Friday we finally set out. We met our driver and fellow passenger at 6pm and were disappointed to discover that it would apparently take 6 hours to get to the park. I've been here over two and a half months and still the sheer scale of America astounds me. We finally arrived at midnight and it was pretty cold, although over the course of the weekend it got a lot colder. Thankfully some people had set off a lot earlier than us and had set the tents up already, so we all climbed into a tent and quickly failed to get that much sleep. Unfortunately the tent we had chosen to sleep in had a faulty zip, we could not close the door, I improvised with some string and a pack, but the door was wide open and made it far colder than necessary.

When I gave up on the idea of getting any more sleep and crawled out of the tent to a beautiful view. We were in a valley surrounded by tall fir trees. Oz and I went for a walk and found a stunning creek and massive rock. It was lovely.

Soon enough everyone else woke up and we had a small breakfast and set off. The pack didn't feel too heavy at first, but after only a mile going pretty much straight uphill I really felt it. At certain points I only was able to keep going thanks to Oz's encouragement and him holding my hand. I was really excited when I saw a sign telling us it was only 1.7 miles left, but that was the longest 1.7 miles I've ever walked. It was really steep and took well over an hour to climb, it was the hardest physical thing I have ever done. I was so pleased to get to the top and our campsite. I dumped my bags and had a half-hearted look around, I was too tired to do much.

That evening we got a fire going and sat around it warming our cold, sore selves. It got dark around five and there was no point in staying awake that long, it was the first time in years that I've been in bed by eight.

That night I got even less sleep than I had the night previously. I had spent the night listening to the rain coming down and the moment it stopped I got up. I looked around to see some snow on our tent and puddles underneath others. Oz and I were very lucky to not get flooded, a few of the tents did and as our tent had a washing line built into the inside and so ours became a drying tent with the wet sleeping bags drip drying. This meant that we had no cover or anywhere dry to sit the whole day. But at least we had the nice warm feeling inside that we'd done something good. I also had the feeling of freezing feet that night due to my sleeping bag soaking up a small patch of water that we had failed to dry properly. I slept even better that night...

On the Sunday the weather started slightly snowy and declined considerably over a few hours. When I got out of my tent the only snow (besides on my tent) was on the nearby rock face. However by the next day the snow was really deep and our outside toilet looked like this. I know that it doesn't look like the best toilet in the world, and sure, there was ice on the seat, but the view was the best I've ever had from a toilet, don't you agree?

When we left on Monday the snow was still thick on the ground, but the sun was out on the snow was slowly melting. However when we left there was still several inches of snow on the ground and we could barely see the trail we were supposed to be walking. It was really slippery and we couldn't see the rocks that littered the trail. The guy who was leading us had forgotten his walking boots and was doing it all in skate shoes that barely had any grip, I have no idea how he didn't end up breaking his ankle. I found it hard enough to have the energy to notice my surroundings, it was hard enough to be able to safely put one foot in front of the other, move forward and breathe. I knew that my surroundings were beautiful, but I was too tired to notice them.

I was so pleased to finally get down the mountain, but walking without my pack was really hard, my pack wasn't evenly balanced and I almost fell over getting rebalanced. We had eaten really badly the whole weekend and that day all we had eaten was two tiny packets of porridge, half a tangerine and a small handful of trail mix (raisins and nuts). After walking 8 miles we were ravenous and Oz was especially hungry, he was eating peanut butter straight from the jar. However it was four hours before we were able to have a meal.

Before we headed home we went to see General Sherman, the worlds largest tree. That's largest, not biggest or widest - it is the tree with the most wood. It is just a massive tourist attraction, there is a two metre wide tarmacked path to get down there and fences keep the tourists away from the big trees. There were loads of tourists having pictures taken next to it, American smiles abounded. Oz was really excited about seeing it, he wanted to hug it, however he was prevented by the big fence. Ultimately General Sherman is just a big tree, I was unimpressed.

After General Sherman we set off home along the windy road. About halfway down Oz was feeling sick due to his ears not stabilising and we had to stop for a little while. When we started off again our driver realised the breaks weren't working. They had broken and if it wasn't for Oz feeling ill they'd have broken halfway down the slope and we'd have driven off the road. Unfortunately the small car park we had broken down in had no mobile phone reception and the payphone was broken. We asked a driver to inform the rangers of our situation, but we had no way to know if they had done it or not. After a while of waiting with no news we decided that one of the other passengers and I should hitch-hike to the nearest town and phone the American AA. We got a lift with a young LA couple, but we didn't get nearly as far as expected, when we got to the gate we asked the ranger about breakdown advice and discovered that our car brakes were just over heated and the ranger helped them slowly and carefully down. We got out of the car and waited for our car for half an hour. The brakes were OK, but we had to go really slowly and so it took us about 9 hours to get home.

We decided to stop off at the first restaurant we came to and have a massive meal as we were all really hungry and the lack of food was beginning to make us feel ill. We ended up somewhere called Riverview restaurant in a tiny town called Three Rivers. It was real America, the restaurant looked more like a cafeteria and had a seedy looking attached bar. I had a top sirloin with fries and it was really good. The guy who hitch-hiked with me ordered a pizza and a sandwich with fries, he finished neither but still had a dessert, which he also did not finish. It was so wasteful. The meal was really appreciated by all of us and it gave the brakes ample time to cool down.

After that the journey was fairly straight forward and we got back about midnight. It felt so good to get into the shower and actually be clean for the first time that weekend. This morning I awoke really sore but I have some great memories of that weekend.