On our way to see the big trees we stopped off in Grants Pass for two nights where we were taken in by a lovely homely couple who shared stories about their travels to Nepal, got excited about the impending trip to France, baked us apple pie and were just generally awesome.

On our way to their place we visited Crater Lake National Park for a day which was another beautiful National Park with a few nice walks with spectacular views.

By our hosts' recommendation we decided to climb Mt Thielsen as we suggested we were looking for a challenging day hike - challenging it was. We read about the walk beforehand but assumed they were exaggerating when they said that the last bit is very difficult and involves rock climbing up sheer cliff faces where a wrong footing could be fatal. Needless to say - it was fantastic!