Day 20

After a restful night we jumped on the shuttle bus which took us down from the campsite to the Visitor Centre at Lodgepole in the floor of the valley. We caught a connecting shuttle to Moro Rock where we walked the 400 steps to the top to see the great views out over the foothills and the beginnings of the Sierra Nevada range of mountains. We are up around 7000 feet or so here and all the walking is really hard work and we have to stop regularly to catch our breath, Mum keeps telling me to drink more water because it is good for you. We decided to walk from Moro Rock to Crescent Meadow along the Sugar Pine Trail which is really pretty but REALLY dusty, we were covered by the time we reached the end of the trail. In the meadow is a tree called Tharp’s Log which was used as a summer shelter by a guy called Tharp for 30 years, I couldn’t live there because I don’t like the idea of all the spiders living at the other end of the log. From here we caught another shuttle to the Giant Trees Trail which is a short walk around a meadow where the sequoia trees like to grow, as we walked around we saw a black bear which came quite close so we walked a little quicker! At the end of the trail we saw some mule deer who didn’t seem too bothered that we got close to them. We had spent so much time hiking today that we could not get to the Sherman Tree before the shuttles stopped for the night so we made our way back to Visitor Centre where we bought some food for dinner and caught the last bus back to the campground. Chris cooked dinner for us all on the barbecue and we sat outside until it got dark (that’s when the mosquitoes come out to get you) then we went inside and got an early night.