King's Canyon is part of Sequoia National Park and it is home to the deepest canyon in America. It is made up of two distinct areas - Grant Grove (with America's Christmas tree, General Grant), and Cedar Canyon. To show how big the place is, Cedar Grove is approximately 35miles from Grant Grove.
We visited Grant Grove and gave Cedar Grove a miss because it would too long. We had to get to Yosemite National Park that day which would take another 4-5h.
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| General Grant - the nation's Christmas tree |
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| These trees are fascinating. They are resistant to fires - in fact - they need fires! |
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| I love how the boy streak in him is still there - he loved to climb stuff while we were in the park, including this horizontal Sequoia tree. With the kids! |
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| So happy to have climbed up successfully |
From Grant Grove we drove another 45min to Hume Lake. In between we stopped at some view point which we had some fresh mountain air for 15min.
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| Take a break with Pringles |
Hume Lake
We expected another serene lake at Hume Lake, but found this place bustling with activities. In fact it was full of kids! We soon realised that this was the base for a Christian Summer Camp (
http://www.humelake.org) which was very cool. How fun to send kids here for summer camp?
Anyway we did feel like we gate crashed into their camp, even buying lunch from their snack shop. We walked around the lake a little and at one time, a whole group of kids walked past us and each gave us a high five. Start being so friendly at such a young age..
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All the time - amen!
On the grounds of the Christian camp. |
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| The beautiful Hume Lake - how picturesque |
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| Ducks sun-tanning |
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| Oh no see what happened to K's shoe? Hiked too much! |
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| See the kids in the background? They are all part of the camp. |
It got more interesting from there. We left the place at maybe 4-ish before driving towards Yosemite. (Bad choice.) We were to get to this little town called Groveland where our farm B&B was. One of the main cities along the way was this place called Fresno. We got distracted and went into Walmart (K wanted to know - do they really sell guns there?)… and spent a good hour there. We then realised we needed to get dinner and so called the B&B that realistically we would arrive around 930pm. Clearly without knowing what's in store for us.
From Fresno, the roads became smaller as they were leading into the mountains. We had to drive past the towns of Mariposa, Bear Valley, Bagby, Coulterville (looked dead when we drove past but it was bustling during the gold rush days) before getting into Groveland which is "at the foothills of the Sierre Neveda mountains". We wanted to be as close as possible to the entrance of Yosemite National Park.
What this means is, we need to drive through mountain roads. In the dark. God help us.
What I need to show you, via Googlemap is this: The blue road, the Priest Coulterville Road, which we found out later, is one of the steepest mountain roads in California. When going down it is very dangerous according to our B&B owner because car brakes get over heated and accidents happen. This road used to be for horses to pull up wagons in the old days and it is relatively straight… On the other hand, the other option was highway 49 (or the Golden Chain Highway) and pass by Moccasin BUT see that bendy road section in yellow? Yup that is 10miles of very bendy mountain roads. Roads that look down into the valley directly with no barriers. And we had to drive in the dark with no street lamps. OMG.
GPS' directions: take the Golden Chain Highway + bendy roads (in yellow)
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| We took the Golden Chain Highway which joined to the super bendy roads (yellow route). Which later on we found is safer than the Priest Coulterville Road (blue route). Many accidents happen on the mountain roads and you need to be extra careful. |
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Was getting dark and I was anxious to pass by as many bends as possible while there was light.
To be fair the road conditions were good. |
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| Moccasin Creek was already getting dark when we drove past so no chance of light for the scary section |
Hallelujah - really thank God for a hubby who can drive on the other side of the road, in such terrain, in such circumstances. He held on very tightly to the steering wheel and kept telling me "Please exude your calming presence!" He sensed that I was very nervous even though I didn't say anything lol. I guess he saw me holding onto my seat and my hands were clammy throughout. Call me whatever but these were the most scary roads we have been through in our life.
I was already dreading the way down two days later.
But there was no escape. This was the only way to get out of this place. I snapped some photos two days later when we were leaving Groveland to show you.
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| Typical bendy roads |
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| More bends |
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Mountain roads. The road we were travelling on would soon continue to that you see in the distance.
NO SIDE BARRIERS. |
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