Backpacking in Sequoia National Park - Day 1

The date was July 8th. I had spent the past couple of months gearing up and preparing for what would be my first ever backpacking trip. Backpacking is something that I've wanted to get into for much of my adult life, but I had just never decided to make the investment in the gear and the time to plan a trip. I was chatting with my cousin-in-law Mary one day, and she mentioned that she was climbing Mt. Reiner in Washington. She lives in Michigan. Living in California, there are so many wilderness areas to explore right in my backyard, yet I was not backpacking and my cousin was. It made me realize that it was time. My wife Rachel had been telling me for a while that I needed a hobby, and it just clicked. I had found it.

Go back to July 8th. I got up around 5:15am. I needed to pick up my two buddies, Nate and Alex, in North Hollywood by 7:00am. Nate had been backpacking several times before, but for Alex this was his first time. I had been anticipating the trip so much that it seemed surreal that it was actually happening. I was also a little nervous because we didn't have wilderness permits reserved in advance. Therefore, we had to acquire one of the first-come-first-served permits from a Ranger in the Visitor's Center before they were gone. So, there was a chance, although small since we were planning to get up there by 1:00pm when they would start giving permits for Monday, that we could drive all the way up there and not be able to go backpacking after all.

So I kissed Rachel good-bye (the kids were still sleeping) and headed out to pick up the guys. I had even texted both of them "good morning" hoping I would get a response so I would know no one had overslept. Fortunately, neither of them had, despite a power outage that had knocked out Alex's alarm. We hit the road and made good time. We even had time to stop for some McDonald's breakfast in Farmersville. Sausage burritos might be one of my guilty pleasures.

Unbeknownst to us, probably the harrowing part of our trip (spoiler alert) was immediately in front of us. My silver Honda Civic is over twenty years old and he wasn't too happy about the extreme heat and having to drive up a steep grade for over an hour. As we started the climb, I noticed the heat gauge on the car slowly climbing. We turned off the AC, but the engine still got hotter. The closer we got to the main part of the Park, the steeper the grades became and the temperature kept creeping upwards. Finally, we ended up turning on the heat full blast and opening the windows (even though it was in the 90's outside) in an effort to keep the engine from overheating and stranding us on the side of the General's Highway. As we entered the main part of the Park and the Giant Forrest, it was hard for me to soak up the beauty of the Sequoias towering around us because I was so nervous the car was about to start smoking.

Finally, after what probably felt like much longer than it actually was, we made it to the north side of the Park and parked my car at the Lodgepole Visitor Center and Market. I was so hot a sweaty and hadn't hiked a step yet! It was about 12:15pm, so we had plenty of time to look around before grabbing our wilderness permit. There was a small exhibit about the history of the area and the giant trees that was pretty fascinating to read about. It was a convenient way to kill some time while we waited for 1:00pm.

At 1:00pm, we went to the permit desk to get our permits, and I think we were the first ones to get permits for the High Sierra Trail. We could now all breathe a sigh of relief that we had permits in hand! With that business taken care of, we decided to eat lunch there the the Lodgepole Market. We knew it would be our last non-dehydrated meal for a few days, so we made sure to enjoy it. I got a chicken sandwich, and when she asked if I wanted to add bacon and avocado, I said, "Heck yes!" At lunch we met another backpacker who was hitting the High Sierra Trail in the morning, only he was going all the way through to Mt. Whitney! And he was going by himself! I was really grateful to have Nate and Alex with me. I don't know if I'd enjoy backpacking as much if I were going by myself.

After lunch, it was about 2:00pm, so we had some time to kill before we needed to get to our campsite and set up. We decided to take the Park shuttle and see some of the touristy things that we had passed on our way in. Our first stop was the General Sherman Tree.

We got off the shuttle above the tree actually and hiked a short trail down to it. The tree was MASSIVE! The photos don't really do justice to how large it actually is. It is actually the largest tree in the world by mass! We walked around it and snapped some pictures, but decided we didn't want to wait in the 20+ minute line to get a picture by the sign in front of the tree.

Next, we headed down the Giant Forrest Museum. There was another tree there named "Sentinel" that had no line, so we jumped on that and asked a nearby tourist to get a picture of the three of us. We looked around the museum and learned more about the life cycle of these incredible trees, some of which have been on the earth since before Jesus was born!

The last stop of our "touristy" part of our trip was Moro Rock. This giant outcropping of rock greeted us as we entered the Park, towering above the valley below at 6,725 feet. Fortunately for us and the tourists, however, we only had to hike the last 300 feet of that from the shuttle stop. The coolest thing about this stop to me was that we got to see the destination of our first day of backpacking from the peak. Bearpaw Meadow lies along a ridge between two rocky faces to the east of Moro Rock. I took a picture of Nate pointing to it so that we could see how far we had to hike the next day.

The panoramas from the top of the rock were simply breathtaking, and we hadn't even started backpacking yet! It was a great foretaste to get us excited about the days ahead.

That night, I had booked a campsite back on the north side of the Park at Dorst Creek Campground. We had a great little spot tucked on the back side of one of the walk-in loops there. I dropped off the guys there to set things up while I went a little farther down the road to get a little bit of gas in the car that we would need for our return trip. When I returned, both of the tents were set up (Nate and I shared mine and Alex has his own one-person tent), and the guys were getting ready to get dinner going. I had my first dehydrated meal of rice and chicken, and it wasn't bad, but the highlight of the evening wasn't the food! We had several visitors to our campsite that evening. I was able to snap a picture of the mule deer, but the mama black bear and her cub were a little more camera shy. It definitely showed us the importance of using our bear box for anything with a scent! We got to bed around 9:30pm that evening, hoping to get well rested for the long day ahead.