Sequoia National Forrest

“Majesty beyond compare!”

We rose early in the morning in the little town of Exeter. After quickly packing our for the day we are off. The trip to the forest is a quiet one with little to comment on except to say, “Wow those turns are tight and that road seems to go straight up the side of the cliffs at times.”

                If you can handle the trip there (That is- not too bothered by heights or sheer cliffs.) the forest is not to be missed.  Walking amongst those giants and listening to the wind rushing through their branches so high above my head I get the feeling I could get lost in time there. Something calming happens to you when you are there. Even though the air is much thinner it’s easier to breath up there. All the troubles of the world seem far off and distant for a time. I swear if you listen close enough you’ll hear the forest whispering to you to shed your problems and relax a bit.

We hiked for well over four miles back into the trees without even noticing how far we had gone. The temperature was a cool fifty eight degrees but it was comfortable. At every turn there was something that one of us wanted to photograph. We took so many pictures I have spent the last two days picking which ones to upload to the site.  After our hike we went further into the park and found a little café where we had a light lunch, (light on the stomach not on the wallet.) then we played around the stream that runs right past the café.

Something that amazed me quite a bit is how much our walking in among the trees impacts their lives. Think about this, these trees have been here for thousands and thousands of years. They have weathered fires, droughts, beetle infestation, and blizzards. We come along and in less than one hundred years we almost wipe them completely out. The root systems of these giants are very shallow. We paved roads all over the forest and put up dinners and gas stations along with all kinds of lodges and inns. From about nineteen fifty to two thousand we about killed the trees. Starting in two thousand the Forest Service has been changing the park back and limiting the areas we walk. You see when the ground gets packed down even a bit the roots of these sentinels can’t get enough nutrients to survive. Simply by walking around them we were killing them.  I’m glad we figured out what was wrong and started to fix the problem. It’s so important to preserve this great gift from God for our children and grand children.

After our sojourn into another time amongst the giants we traveled quietly back to our hotel. Each of us, I’m sure contemplating how fortunate we are to have such a jewel right here in our own back yard. Well maybe not Andrew. He was probably contemplating going to the pool again, when he wasn’t napping.

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog and don’t forget to check out all our photos on the regular pages.

Matt..

This entry was posted on 18. June 2009 at 06:51 and is filed under Our Trip (Sequoia). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.