Of Black Bears and White Snow- Part 1

Yet another of those rare 4 day weekends (not as rare as the forced 10 day vacation during Christmas!) has arrived. I am all packed up to brave a 350 miles drive to Sequoia (now that's all vowels in one word...I just noticed!). As it turns out it pretty much costs that much in dollars for a night's stay in the national park, so I have booked myself in Visalia (Y-SAA-LIA....not visa-lia or Vinashlila....bad joke!!!!)

Well so I got up at 8 AM on a holiday and was religiously out of San Diego by 9. All was going well and as per schedule till I hit the LA bypass. I had always thought, bypasses were supposed to help reduce the time on a journey by helping you avoid the traffic jams of the city. But I can bet a lot of money on the fact that I would have taken the same amount of time if not less, had I struggled through the LA city traffic. It was a good 2 hours before I could drive at more than 30 miles/hour!!

But I was in no hurry! I had enough time at hand to experience the benefits of driving alone...

Well for one if you are fond of singing but were not really born with the vocal chords of Lata Mangeshkar or Celine Dion....you really don't find too many outlets for your singing prowess....a long drive is just what you need. You can sing as much as you want and as loudly as you want....and then pat your back for the brilliant performance :) That's not psycho...its real fun!

My song for the drive..."Pyaar ki chutni".... One of those songs you download as a bundle of the whole movie and love the cheekiness of it when it plays...again and again :)

You know I learnt how to drive a car in the hills of Udhampur. the one thing I always cursed my instructor about was why he would ask me to drive uphill and then ask me to stop the car....ON THE SLOPE!!...and then ask me to restart....curse him!!!! I could never do it right....had it not been for the extra set of clutch and brake with him, I would not have been typing this out. That training has put a mortal fear of tackling slopes while driving. So when I saw signs on the road warning drivers of the gradient and the possibility of overheating of the radiator....I had half a mind to turn back...but but but...such was not the case with the US highways (you just have to admire the infrastructure!!!)...On hills they have 4 lane roads for one way traffic!!! I drove at 60 miles/hr speed on hills!!

No I am not over the fear....cuz I know Indian hills and I know Indian roads...but I survived this one!

So after listening and singing all the cheeky Hindi numbers and enjoying the drive I finally arrived in Visalia.

Visalia is a small small small town. It was like the Munna bhai scene of the hostel room...'Bhai yeh to shuru hote hi khatam ho gaya' but the hotel was big....it could have been a matchbox with a bed for all I cared, given how cramped I felt after the 7 hour long drive. So I enjoyed a long nap while my friends drove from San Jose lucky for them....2 people sharing a 4 hour drive!!!

We were a group of extremes...with me being the median :) (never thought that would be the case). One of us was an Omnivore...and one was a choosy vegetarian ( he he... no cheese, no pasta, no pizza....can u imagine!!!) and then me....vegetarian...will eat so long as it is veggie!!....so I did what I do best...stuff up on ice cream and cheese in ALL Meals!!!!

I resume writing this after a very tiring day at office...no action....just plain old sitting in front of the laptop day..

So where were we? Yes...we entered the national park thankfully without me in the driver's seat!!! (else the trip would have been the most short lived :) ), to find that the natural beauty had made Japanese out of all people (oho...I mean everyone was clicking pictures left right and centre!!!!!). We were not to be left behind.

On the way there were many mini waterfalls. We stopped by at one to get a top down view of the water rather than the bottom up view. This was when I realized that climbing down.....or in my case sliding down from rocks was not as easy as I had thought it would be. Much to the amusement (and maybe reaffirmation of my male friends about the adventurous nature of their female fellow trekker!!!) I tumbled down and managed to keep myself dry, promising to myself all the time that I have not done rock climbing in a long time and this is just the rust getting rubbed off!!!!

A short drive ahead we got to see the largest tree in the world, in the Giant forest....the General Sherman!! It it neither the tallest nor the widest but the biggest in volume and super old.....estimated age around 2200 years!!!!! One thing in US which was older than most things in India :D. This tree was named after General William Tecumseh Sherman (can't pronounce the middle name if my life depended on it!!!) who fought in the Civil War.

There was snow spread all around and bright sun beaming from top making it a lovely walk (and slips here and there) when it was neither too cold nor too hot. We even met with a beaver like creature who was as enthusiastic a poser as I consider myself...and we unknowingly must have trampled on a lot of vegetation by trespassing in prohibited areas to meet the beaver like creature!!

With this we drive to the "Marketplace" to watch a 10 min movie where people are told that while Sequoia is home to Black bears, you might not get to see one till they come and destroy your car at night for food. So you better make yourself contented with watching them on the screen. So we watched our share of bear (poetic!!!!) and grabbed some more cheese to eat in the sun!! All this while I was wondering that this was one place we did not see as many Indians as one normally sees in tourist destinations (kinda makes Americans feel like tourists at times!). But I thought that too soon...since all the Indians were seen flocking around the eating joint of the national park and not around the trekking trails!!!

The happy trekkers then set on to the next available trail and I cannot remember the name of that trail right now....not trying too hard!! But it was a 2 miles one way trail where in the beginning we walked generally bickering about excessive travelling in our jobs and the boredom that sets in.

But soon we shut up trying not to waste any extra energy in talking since the climb was becoming steadily steeper. We were quietly walking engrossed in looking at the ground lest we should fall (that's what I was doing!!), when at a distance not more than 30 feet Deepak spotted an equally engrossed Black bear busy tearing apart the trunk of a tree looking for insects (I remembered the 10 min documentary!!!!). Thank God I was not talking at that time else with the loudspeakers that are fitted in my throat, the bear would surely have attacked us in alarm! We slid past the bear and hid in all angles trying to get the best shot.....and many shots we clicked, since the bear was least bothered about us and there was no one else around. So we won't have to bluff that we saw a bear! Yippee!!!!

Did I type 'A' Bear?? Again...spoke too soon....a little ahead we saw TWO!!!!  a mother and a cub!!!....thank god for the marsh between us and them and the hunger that kept them busy....else this one could have been a dangerous encounter...

A short walk of another hour took us to the top of the peak. The view was...breathtaking!!!! A complete hill of Granite!!!! A couple of pictures later...we just about made in back in time to be able to catch the last bus to take us to the parking lot. By now I could not feel my legs and would have given anything to just be back at the hotel and in my bed!!! but paapi pet ka sawaal hai!!! A quick 2 hour drive (with Jagjit Singh playing the background score...Deepak driving and Pradeep snoring!)and a dinner later I was ready to call it a day...

There is more to come!!!!