GRANT GROVE, SEQUOIA NP

The beautiful Sequoia's in Grant Grove

DATE:  Sat, Oct. 22, 2011
HOME:  Kings Canyon, John Muir Lodge
DISTANCE: 0 Layover Day
WEATHER: Perfect
NARRATIVE:
Slept in, had coffee, listened to NPR, and then went to breakfast.  Bob spent the morning planning next week – and there is a section around L.A. (our route goes through the mountains and shoul be beautiful – map shows a California Scenic By-way) that we’re having trouble finding a place to stay – camping or hotel – within reasonable riding distances.  One piece that was critical, a lodge, was booked for all of October with a group!?)  Anyway, he’s working on his sister, Kay, picking us up in Kernville and taking us across the difficult section.  Haven’t heard from her yet, but, if she can’t do it, we’ll move to plan C, D?!  Been there before on this trip.

We have both decided this is probably our most difficult long distance trip ever.  We spend inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out where to stay each day.  We have to take into account, not just mileage, but climbing.  And, the distances between places can be enormous with no place to stay, not even camping.  Days that we thought would be relaxing and short, turn out to be almost a full day's ride.  Beautiful riding, but, especially here in the Sierras we really want to be on the hiking trails, not the roads. The number of days with less than 3,000ft. of climbing is just a handful.  While we’re feeling incredibly strong our whole bodies are needing a rest, so our time between layover days is getting shorter and shorter.

Back to our day:  We took a nice, leisurely walk in Grant Grove this afternoon to the Grant Tree.  These are absolutely magnificent trees.  The Jeffrey, Ponderosa, and Cedars are also wonderful. It felt good to be on a trail rather than the bike – and we realized how close we were to some of our favorite high Sierra sites, and that there’s a canyon here we haven’t explored.  In short, we found next year’s backpacking trip!