Our Volksvegan Adventure

We stuck around Boonville for a couple of days, visiting nearby Ukiah (where there was an organic brewery and another disc golf course) and camping outside Boonville in a campground full of huge redwood trees. Then we parted ways with our friend and headed Southeast to Yosemite. We stealthily camped at a spot we found along the way, which is how we normally roll to avoid paying for camping every night.

Neither of us has ever visited Yosemite, and we were most excited about seeing the park’s groves of giant sequoias. We stopped first at Merced Grove, and hiked in to see a small grove of enormous sequoias. Sequoias, cousins of the coastal redwoods, are the most massive species on earth and the largest trees by volume, though not height (that honor belongs to the redwoods). The trees are wider than our bus, with gnarly trunks that get bigger at the base. The bark is a beautiful cinnamon red, even brighter than the redwoods. We enjoyed being in the presence of these ancient giants.

After hiking in Merced Grove, we headed to the famous Yosemite Valley. The glacial valley has very interesting geology, as most of the mountains surrounding it are solid granite. We saw Bridalveil Falls, reduced to a tiny trickle, and El Capitan, the biggest granite monolith in the world, towering above the valley floor. Half Dome is probably Yosemite Valley’s most well known feature, a granite mountain that forms a round dome that looks like it was sliced in half. The autumn trees were just starting to turn, providing splashes of color against the gray granite walls of the valley. We drove down the valley and walked to Yosemite Falls, which unfortunately was dried up due to the season and drought. We watched the sunset casting colors on Half Dome and left the park to camp.

The next morning we went back into the park for a last view of the valley. We found a trail and hiked to Inspiration Point for amazing views of Yosemite Valley. Then we headed to the Southern end of Yosemite to see Mariposa Grove, the park’s largest grove of sequoias. We spent hours hiking around the huge grove full of beautiful sequoias that were spread out over a few miles. The massive sequoias certainly stand out among the other trees around them and are easy to spot. One of the oldest sequoias in the grove (2,700 years old), Giant Grizzly, had branches bigger around than any of the non-sequoias in the grove. We climbed into trees hollowed out by fire that were still living, one of which had a tunnel carved out by fire, another that was hollow far up its trunk so you could look up it from the inside. After playing in the giant trees for a while, we left Yosemite and headed South toward King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.

Once in King’s Canyon National Park, we went to Grant Grove, home of General Grant, one of the largest sequoias. We walked among the forest, stopping to admire the sequoias as it started to hail. The hail turned into snow and started piling up. We couldn’t believe it was snowing at the beginning of October, but at over 6,000 feet it’s not uncommon. We headed into the canyon, and as we lost elevation we left the snow behind. King’s Canyon is a beautiful deep canyon with colorful granite walls dotted with yucca plants. It was a bit foggy as we drove into the canyon, which made it seem even more surreal. We stopped at several waterfalls and sights on the way through the canyon. After the short drive down the canyon (you actually can’t drive very far into it, most of the park is only accessible by hiking), we camped at a free campground in the forest just outside the park. We were soon glad we didn’t pay anything to camp there, as a group of six cars pulled in that night and unloaded a miniature village of people at the campsite right next to us. They crammed nine tents and probably around thirty people into a tiny campsite, yelling and talking loudly in Spanish into the wee hours. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep and got out of there as soon as we could the next morning.

Since it was clear and sunny, we decided to drive back into the canyon for a better view. First we stopped at Boyden Cavern and got an early morning private tour into the marble cave. Several caves formed in the Sierra Nevadas in pockets of limestone within the mostly granite mountains. There were really cool calcite formations all throughout the narrow, winding cave. Once we were out from underground, we did a little hiking and got much better views of the tall mountains surrounding King’s Canyon, then we headed to Sequoia National Park.

The magnificent sequoias grow only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Range between 5,000 and 7,000 feet. There are only about 75 groves, mixed forests where sequoias tower over cedar, oak, dogwood, and ponderosa pine trees. These colossal beings seem to be relics from an ancient time, growing up for the first part of their lives, then expanding outward to reach diameters of about 40 feet! It was truly awesome to see them and learn about these ancient trees, some of which are nearly 3,000 years old. We drove through sequoias to the Giant Forest, one of the largest groves. There we visited General Sherman, the world’s largest tree (in volume, not height) and several of his humongous neighbors. We went on a hike in a meadow surrounded by sequoias, then hiked up to Sunset Rock for a view of the Sierra Nevadas. We were pretty tired as we drove out of the park and found a campground.

We’re now heading back up North and back to the coast. Our first stop was Santa Cruz, where we visited one of my good friends from high school, Josh, and his girlfriend Cori. Then we’ll go through San Francisco and stop in Berkeley to visit our friend Jake. We’ll hopefully be able to visit a few places we missed on the way back up. Eventually we’re making our annual trek to the Okanogan Family Faire in Tonasket, Washington, an event we’ve been going to for years. It’s about time we went to a barter faire this fall, and it will be the first time the bus will be with us. See you at the barter faire!