The high Sierras are so beautiful.
Blue skies, cool fresh mountain air and all alone on roads that wound ever higher, until the road was closed and we had to admit that the sign indicating the closure, some 20 km. earlier, had not been a mistake.
Since we didn't want to drive the whole way back we tried a shortcut straight into the valley.
Well. Not so straight. And not so shortcut.
Imagine this: a sign warning for hairpins. Next 33 miles.
33 miles is 50+ kilometer is, when doing one hairpin after another, one point five hours of curve right - short straight stretch - curve left - short straight stretch - curve right - ad inf.
I must say, after those 1.5 hrs. I was slightly queasy, to say the least (so ad nauseam rather than ad inf!).
Lovely trip, but - thanks to the closed road - it didn't bring us where we wanted to be: Sequoia National Park, Sequoia Nat. Monument and King's Canyon.
So next day we tried again and succeeded.
Come to think of it, that might be a bit of an understatement.
The giant sequoias make you realise you're a tiny speck in the history of the world, and that your trials and tribulations are nothing, compared to these trees who've been around for two or three thousand years.
Ok, they haven't had to deal with jobs, mortgages and financial crises, but nevertheless, they put your existence in perspective.
And that is a calming and, funnily enough, also a reassuring experience.
Walking around in the sequoia forest is being in contact with Nature on the highest level. Same as sitting on a cliff near the ocean and watching thunderous waves crashing into the rocks.
Holland isn't the place to have these encounters.
I am so glad Pieter and I are able to travel to places where we can see Nature in the raw: direct, unrelenting, with an energy that is rejuvenating.
I could fill the rest of the blog entries with pics of these beautiful, beautiful trees. We saw two of the largest: the Sherman tree (the largest known single stem tree on earth) and the general Grant (the nation's Christmas Tree!).
You knew they need fire to germinate? Only the hot air of a fire opens up the cones.
The fire burns all the surrounding bushes and shrubs, thus clearing the forest floor for the seeds to grow into trees, and it provides the soil and the seedlings with a nice layer of nutrients.
The trees themselves are burnt several times in their life so most of them are heavily scarred by fire. If all goes well they will have grown a thick new protective layer of bark before the next fire reaches them.
These trees don't die of old age, after a couple of thousand years they topple. They may be 28 storeys high, but they have no taproot and only a very shallow root system. One we saw had crashed to the ground, you could easily walk through the tree trunk. In the early days groups of explorers even used them as a shelter.
The western Sierra Nevada is the only place in the world where these trees grow. And then only between 5,000 and 7,000 feet.
Btw, we didn't make it to Kings Canyon. After the sequoia forest we drove into a very dense fog, so we almost missed the sign that the road into and in the canyon was closed.
I can go on and on and on. I shall not. See for yourself!
Blue skies, cool fresh mountain air and all alone on roads that wound ever higher, until the road was closed and we had to admit that the sign indicating the closure, some 20 km. earlier, had not been a mistake.
Since we didn't want to drive the whole way back we tried a shortcut straight into the valley.
Well. Not so straight. And not so shortcut.
Imagine this: a sign warning for hairpins. Next 33 miles.
33 miles is 50+ kilometer is, when doing one hairpin after another, one point five hours of curve right - short straight stretch - curve left - short straight stretch - curve right - ad inf.
I must say, after those 1.5 hrs. I was slightly queasy, to say the least (so ad nauseam rather than ad inf!).
Lovely trip, but - thanks to the closed road - it didn't bring us where we wanted to be: Sequoia National Park, Sequoia Nat. Monument and King's Canyon.
So next day we tried again and succeeded.
Come to think of it, that might be a bit of an understatement.
The giant sequoias make you realise you're a tiny speck in the history of the world, and that your trials and tribulations are nothing, compared to these trees who've been around for two or three thousand years.
Ok, they haven't had to deal with jobs, mortgages and financial crises, but nevertheless, they put your existence in perspective.
And that is a calming and, funnily enough, also a reassuring experience.
Walking around in the sequoia forest is being in contact with Nature on the highest level. Same as sitting on a cliff near the ocean and watching thunderous waves crashing into the rocks.
Holland isn't the place to have these encounters.
I am so glad Pieter and I are able to travel to places where we can see Nature in the raw: direct, unrelenting, with an energy that is rejuvenating.
I could fill the rest of the blog entries with pics of these beautiful, beautiful trees. We saw two of the largest: the Sherman tree (the largest known single stem tree on earth) and the general Grant (the nation's Christmas Tree!).
You knew they need fire to germinate? Only the hot air of a fire opens up the cones.
The fire burns all the surrounding bushes and shrubs, thus clearing the forest floor for the seeds to grow into trees, and it provides the soil and the seedlings with a nice layer of nutrients.
The trees themselves are burnt several times in their life so most of them are heavily scarred by fire. If all goes well they will have grown a thick new protective layer of bark before the next fire reaches them.
These trees don't die of old age, after a couple of thousand years they topple. They may be 28 storeys high, but they have no taproot and only a very shallow root system. One we saw had crashed to the ground, you could easily walk through the tree trunk. In the early days groups of explorers even used them as a shelter.
The western Sierra Nevada is the only place in the world where these trees grow. And then only between 5,000 and 7,000 feet.
Btw, we didn't make it to Kings Canyon. After the sequoia forest we drove into a very dense fog, so we almost missed the sign that the road into and in the canyon was closed.
I can go on and on and on. I shall not. See for yourself!
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