Monday we filled up with gas and headed up the winding mountain roads to King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.
We don’t always research ahead of time, but I’m so glad we did a little this time. We were planning to just visit Sequoia Monday and to visit King’s Canyon another day. During our research, we found out that vehicles over 22 feet long are not allowed to drive through a portion of Sequoia. Our van is 21.99 feet long – no joke. We decided we didn’t want to chance it.
We entered the parks through King’s Canyon at the Big Stump Entrance. There we learned from a ranger the best way to navigate through to Sequoia. The ranger told us the portion not recommended for vehicles over 22 feet has 120 hairpin setbacks. Yeah. We were definitely glad we did not enter where we’d originally planned.
We didn’t see much of King’s Canyon as we were set on seeing the big sequoia trees. It was about an hour and a half drive to get from our RV park in Sanger to where we wanted to stop in Sequoia National Park. Once we entered Sequoia, we knew it. We were amazed by the massive trees!
We parked at the Giant Forest Museum and walked the Big Trees Trail. This was a perfect trail to walk with kids. It was stroller friendly, and there were so many huge sequoia trees to see along the walk.
The base of this tree is the size of our family spread out holding hands in a circle.
Each national park is so different. Mesa Verde was fascinating. Zion was gorgeous everywhere we turned. Joshua Tree was interesting and had such unique plants and trees to see. Sequoia left us in awe.
Pictures really can’t show the greatness of these trees.
The weather was nice and the park is so shaded by all the trees.
There were interesting trees and logs that were hollow laying alongside the trail. Our little girls loved these.
After we finished the Big Trees Trail, we drove a short distance to the General Sherman Tree parking. The General Sherman Tree is the world’s largest tree, measured by volume. We walked a half mile trail that was easy to do with kids but not stroller friendly. There were quite a bit of stairs going down.
This is the footprint of the General Sherman Tree. The base is over 36 feet in diameter.
The General Sherman is massive, and it was amazing to see.
We had to leave through the same entrance we entered to avoid those 120 hairpin setbacks. We hoped to stop in King’s Canyon as we made our way back, but we lost daylight quickly.
We saw the sun set and fade as we rolled, literally, down the mountain. No gas needed for probably 15 miles.