Amazing, majestic, incredible.....those are a few words that describe the magnificient vistas, valleys, trails and trees in the Sequoia National Park.

The drive to the park via the southern entrance (Ash Mountain) on General's Highway, spiraled up the mountains with continous, sharp, hair-pin turns for about 25 miles before reaching Moro Rock (6725' elevation). That was the first test of endurance. Hiking to Moro Rock was the second challenge. Moro Rock is a dome-shaped granite rock that can be seen many miles below and beyond the Sequoia NP. To reach this magnificient vista, there is a 3-mile drive from General's Highway down a dead-end road and a short 1/4 mile hike... but, the hike is strenuous, with 400 narrow winding steps and a 300 foot elevation gain. It is not a hike for the weak and winded or for anyone with a fear of heights. There are many places with no railing that run along shear cliff drop-offs. The constant winds and narrow passages made most of the hikers hug the side of the rock as if they were gum on a shoe as they made their way to and from one of the most spectacular views in the park. Visitors are warned that "you are responsible for your own safety" here, and throughout the park. As I was hiking down, a young boy about 10 years old and his parents were slowly making their way back down the rock; the boy tripped and stumbled and my heart nearly stopped. Had he not been caught by his Dad there would have been a different story written - one of great tragedy. Even tough the incident with the child scared the devil out of me, this was truly one of my favorite hikes.

Just a few miles away on the same dead-end road was Cresent Meadow, a wetland that was breathtakingly beautiful. From there you could choose several trails to hike. Once again, bears and other wildlife frequent the area and there are no shortages of warnings. We decided to take the "trail less traveled" to the High Sierra heading for Eagle's View. Since we couldn't leave any food in our vehicle, I carried it in my pack (making me the target for bears). As we were hiking, Dan and I discussed our plan of action if we encountered a bear. We had been told NOT to throw our food toward the bear in attempt to escape harm but rather make ourselves appear big and scary to ward off approaching wildlife - yeah, me at 5'6" and Dan at 5'9' appearing big to a 400+ pound bear - that was funny. We were also told that we couldn't have aerosol sprays (yep, in my backpack) or weapons (yep, in my bellypack) in the park. As we ascended to our destination, we were without human noise and saw no trash. When we reached Eagle's View, we were in total awe...an eagle's view indeed. Clouds had started to build high atop the ridges that bordered the park and in the far, far distance we could see smoke from one of the active forest fires. After we absorbed all the beauty we could handle, we found a place to stop and have lunch. We decided to face each other so we could see anything coming in either direction...did I mention Eagle's View was on yet another narrow trail that lined the side of the mountain - straight down. After our short rest we decided we should make our way back to our truck, laughing that when we got back, there would be a bear mauling our cooler and drinking our pepsi - none of which occured but there were a couple of mule deer waiting for a photo op.

With just a few hours of daylight left, we headed into the giant forest to see the world's largest tree, General Sherman. The tree is massive with a height of 275 feet, girth of 103 feet and 36.5' in diameter; it is 2,200 years old having 52,500 cubic feet of wood and weighing 1,385 tons - making it the world's largest tree. It is very impressive.

The trip to SNP wouldn't have been complete without driving through one of the giant sequoias; alas, the max height was 8 feet; our truck - 8-1/2 feet so we had to take the bypass but not without trying first.

With all the postings and warnings about active bears, we never saw the first one along any of the trails. We did see bear poop and clumps of fur but no bears other than the ones on the posters. As we continued our drive north on General's Highway heading back to our base camp, there it was - crossing the road right in front of us, about a 300 pound brown bear; we were told no matter what color the bears were, they only had black bears in California.

My day was complete.