We woke up this morning to the happy sounds of about two dozen sparrows, blackbirds, cowbirds, purple finches, Black-headed grosbeaks and a few chubby doves discussing seed distribution policies below our feeder. They were quite hungry or very efficient because they almost drained the feeder in less than 24 hours.

We jumped up, fortified ourselves with breakfast and enhanced coffee and hopped into our pickup, Charlotte, and headed up CA-198, by Lake Kahwea, through Three Rivers and on into Sequoia National Park. Our Interagency Geezer Pass got us through the gate without charge. CA-198 is a screwy road into the park and we pushed on up the switchbacks all the way to the Giant Forest Museum & Visitor Center which sits in the midst of some truly magnificent redwood trees. Once in the park, 198 becomes General’s Highway. Despite it being about 80 degrees down in Lemon Cove at about 500 foot elevation, it was pretty chilly up here at around 7000 foot elevation. There was quite a bit of snow alongside the road and on all the slopes above the road.

The terrain here is spectacular cliffs, huge boulders, vigorous creeks and rivers all filling in the scenery behind the gigantic redwood trees, The road through the park meanders along the ridge line between 6500′ and 7000′. We continued along the General’s Highway for about 30 miles of stunning scenery, stopping in many of the turnouts and viewpoints along the way. At Grant Grove, we turned on CA-180 and began a long descent into King’s Canyon National Park. I can’t remember where one can see a bigger elevation change that is so abrupt. The bottom of the canyon is at about 4000′ and the surrounding mountains that are the canyon walls top out above 10,000′. The rock formations here are otherworldly, impressive and very steep. After dropping about 2000 feet, we turned around and headed for a place called Hume Lake. The road in is an unmarked, lane-and-a-half wide downslope at about 8% but we didn’t meet anything we couldn’t get by and eventually arrived at the lake. Strangely, considering this is federal land, there is a well-developed Christian goon camp here with numerous apartment-style barracks, a big store, a common dining hall big enough for a regiment and lots of stuff that brave souls can use to go out on the lake. Since the lake is glacial snowmelt, there were no takers on the water sports but there were ample numbers of people about wearing clothes like my mom made me wear in 1967. There no brothers visible.

We drove back up out of King’s Canyon and back through Grant Grove where we picked up CA-180 again. About 5 miles later, we turned down down CA-245 which did not look very twisty on our atlas. The atlas was full of shit because CA-245 might be the curviest road we have ever driven. The distance from the 180/245 split to Woodland was probably only about 40 or 50 miles but it took us two hours to drive it. What it lacks in linearity it more than makes up for in beautiful mountain scenery followed by oak forest and eventually fruit groves in Woodland. The flowers were out in force. From Woodland it was just about a 15 minute drive back to our RV park in Lemon Cove. We made it home in time for cocktails.

There’s a few pictures. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/JKWhevpf5juaHBNYA