Of Black Bears and White Snow- Part 2

http://tinitravels.blogspot.com/2010/06/of-black-bears-and-white-snow-part-1.html

Had I been travelling alone to Sequoia, one day would have tired me out sufficiently and I am sure I would have nursed my sore limbs in the hotel for a day and driven back to San Diego the next. Thankfully...I did not do that. And hence I reaffirm my conclusion that exploring a new place (unless its some museum or a worn down German castle) is always more fun with company.

Anyways, after a breakfast of leftover Pizza from last night (Go on...think all you want about the reason for my chubbiness!!!....but in my defense I have not had a pizza in a loooooong time and I ate this time only out of hunger!), we were on our way back to Sequoia, this time much faster since we did not take pit stops at every 2 miles to admire the natural beauty down below and capture it in our cameras....but but but...Had my dadi been here she would have said "nazar lagaa di na" cuz right in front of was a long serpentine traffic jam....and we were told the waiting time was 20 minutes!!!

So we got out and started posing yet again as if one day was not enough to click pictures! You would think that...but no! Take a wild guess at how many pictures I clicked over the 2 days I was in the national park.....200...300...I took 600 pictures!!!! Of every stone, rock, hill, mountain to every twig of grass, the yellow flowers to the giant sequoia....and from the two legged homo sapiens to the insect munching bears!!

Having seen the high point (quite literally) of Sequoia i.e. the General Sherman trees, the day before with the bonus of witnessing 5 bears in action, we were at the liberty to roam around and trek around as we pleased with no real agenda. So we stopped at the completely unnecessary Hospital Rock. Now don't wonder in your mind as to why the name, nor will I tell....cuz I don't know and nobody seemed to find it odd, that a Rock was named the Hospital Rock without any related history nor being in the neighbourhood of any present medical institution. There were holes dug into the rocks which were displayed as the Grinding Spots as used by the native Americans....can you believe that....we saw holes filled with muddy water and larvae as a tourist spot. And we moved on!!!

Since this was the first time in the trip we had opened the map and the guide, we decided we would check off the listed places...one of them being the Giant Forest Museum where we got to get ourselves clicked (you will find me in the picture somewhere if you look with a microscope) with the the Sentinel (yes they had names for all their trees older than 1000 yrs....less than that they were all toddlers for whom the naming ceremony had not yet taken place :) )

Well Sequoia was a Walking place and they had thrown in a "market place" or two where people could buy stuff and eat stuff. I had already eaten enough cheese for a month and I guess so had my friends, so we packed in the goodies in the rucksack and set on foot in the hopes that when we were hungry we would be able to find a place where no hungry predators would be prowling for our food or for us. And it was also out of concern for the rental car lest the poor thing would get ransacked by the teddy bears (who I am sure would later be disappointed finding Haldiram Bhel puri in the car) and end up making us poor! While I saw the movie yesterday about the not so gentle bears, I was thinking all the time that such ransacking would be sight in the campsites at night only. But day 2 trip had welcomed us with a 7 seater car badly smashed up and torn apart in search of food (or did the rangers keep it as a memento???)

See there I go drifting about food again!!!

I resume writing after a bout of earthquake that rattled (well not really...happens every month here!) San Diego. I guess its a means of social interaction :) when people rush out of their rooms with something to talk about!

So after all the food talk we rode towards the next point in the map...Moro rock. Unlike what I interpreted, it is not the name of some famous person like General Sherman. Its a general name given to granite domes found in these areas (and by these areas I mean Sierra Nevada area). Distance wise it was just a 0.25 miles hike but involved 400 (felt like 4000!!) steps on top of barren rock! By the time we were done with it we were lighter by all the consumed cheese and heavier with many many pictures of the brilliant view from a height of almost 7000 feet. Climbing up is always easier. It it is the coming down part that scares the heebie jeebies out of me...and that too 400 steps. Thank god for the traffic jam (not of vehicles!!!! tourists!!)  which in my mind was breaking my hypothetical tumble from 7000 feet into intermittent stops and I was finally able to land back to 6000 feet height just in time to catch the bus to the Tunnel Log.

The Tunnel Log is exactly what the name suggests. It is a huge Sequoia tree which fell sometime in 1864 and a tunnel was created through it (not sure if it was for ease of movement or for tourist attraction). A popular posing destination for years and years guessing from the fact that when my friends saw my picture at that spot, they recollected having seen it in their childhood (which was not in the recent past!). Well having clicked our customary pictures we scanned the surrounding for any bears and not finding any, we finished up a packet of chips waiting for the next shuttle to arrive to take us to Crescent meadow. Yes that was all there was at the Tunnel log!!! What did u expect? 

Next stop--- Crescent Meadow, known in these circles as the "gem of Sierra". All the water that we noticed on the roads all this time had to have a source. And the snow at Crescent meadow was that source. It was as if we had stepped into a Bollywood song shooting scene....all white with spots of green (not fungus!!!! trees!). This trek was officially 1.5 miles, but whats 1.5 miles when you get lost in the wilderness (quite literally). By the time we were done with this we realized we had covered Crescent Meadow as well as Tharp's Log treks. 

Anyways, it was not the distance that we traversed that was the high point of the trek. Somewhere in the middle of the trek we saw a cute little stream of water on which a group of trekkers was building a log bridge to cross over to the other side, since none of us could locate one anywhere around and we assumed that the other group too was lost like us. It is at later times when you regret the spirit of adventurism!! Read on....

Well we thought we would cross the stream using the log bridge created by our European friends (ya ya...we did not even think of building another one...whats the point...but this was adventurous enough...wasn't it?). As it turned out the cute little stream was not so little....It was a mini river covered with plantation, further covered with a foot of fresh snow (which we very nicely thought to be snow on top of solid ground....like we had been treading till now!!).  The light footed (ok ok the lightest one of was successful in crossing the bridge....and have no doubts....it was not me!!!). The trail had formed in a way to keep the lady in the middle and so it was my turn (incidentally the 2nd lightest (in a group of 3 he he!!!)) to cross. The picture what you see here was just before I stepped and kept stepping into what seemed like a never ending puddle. Had I not been pulled out...once, then twice and then third time....I would have been a frozen block of ice, cuz trust me the water was COLD!!!!! After this I was super cautious in crossing even the log (I never trusted my feet in any case!!). In all this, we almost forgot that we were lost...but on the other side of the stream we saw a bench and heaved a sigh of relief, the human population was expected in that part of the forest!!

As luck would have it, we walked 50 steps and came across the magical bridge which had eluded us till now. Had it appeared earlier, I would not have had to re-visit my whole life in 15 seconds!!! We decided to celebrate....so camped there on the wooden bridge with the cute little stream flowing below and snow all around...the bhel waala and his assistant and prepared the most exotic Haldiram bhelpuri I have ever tasted. How did we eat it? Old papers lying in the rucksack were the plates and the old long forgotten people's business cards were the spoons (takes you back to the old Satyanarayan pooja days of eating panjiri out of a newspaper plate doesn't it? :) ) And we had the most natural ice bucket to cool our apple juice!!!

That was a lot of work! So the happy campers decided to call it a day and chill out at the Beetle Rock for sometime before heading back to Visalia. I had the fortune of being in the company of like-minded nautanki people. So we actually got ourselves clicked chilling out!!! Then my friends snoozed for sometime while I clicked some more (even smaller) yellow flowers.

With Indian Ocean in the background, we headed back to Visalia with a stopover but buy strawberries freshly picked from the backyard garden. It was time to hit the sack early cuz I had the 350 miles drive the next morning with the LA traffic yet again, so I better be up and ready early in the morning!

Day 3-- Ready to head back, I decided to fuel up. Remember when I had said Visalia was a small town? I was reminded of it again when I was looking for the gas station. But when I found one, I was pleasantly surprised to find a jolly Sardar uncleji running the place. And he was happier still (sometimes I can talk punjabi...he he!!!!). So after a ghar ki bani coffee I was all prepped up for the long journey!

Remember one thing which I learnt the hard way....never try to stretch your legs to release strain while driving the car, because if you strain a muscle, everything goes dark in front of your eyes for a time substantial to derail you from your lane!!!! So to avoid this do take a break when you are driving, no matter how fresh you think you are feeling. That's just what I did (after giving a heart attack to some poor fellow driving in the lane next to mine...quick thinking!!!). But I did make it back in good time and even changed my rental car and took a Mustang, therefore putting a fuel guzzler feather to the cap of this three day trip!!!

So here's to many more long weekends!!!!