California: National Parks

 

This past summer I went to California. It was definitely not the best time to go and I was super nervous because of COVID, but I was so sick of being stuck at home for five months. My dad currently lives in California and had moved there last December, so this was the first time we were able to visit. He has a small apartment on the border of Santa Monica and West LA, so we were able to explore a lot around there. But, this post isn’t about that. Today I’ll actually be talking about some of the national parks we went to in California. I’ll be honest, I’m not the most athletic person, so hiking in these national parks weren’t the easiest for me, but the sites were actually really cool so it was definitely worth it. From the mountains to the valleys, the views were absolutely breathtaking, and the pictures just don’t do it justice.

Yosemite National Park

You’ve all probably heard of Yosemite National Park, and there’s a reason some people would consider it the most beautiful place on Earth. Some of the views are just UNREAL. They are seriously breathtaking. Honestly though, it had to be for how difficult it was to get tickets to enter. This summer, because of COVID, they implemented a reservation system(to limit the amount of people) where you could buy tickets way in advance, and if you missed that, they had some tickets they make available only two days before the date you were trying to reserve. But it’s first come first serve. With the popularity of Yosemite, tickets sold out in SECONDS! Somehow, we did end up getting tickets eventually, but it was not easy. But again, I can understand why it’s so popular!

It is a huge park so you’re probably driving for a good amount of time to get to each trail or site. It was about a 4 hour drive from Santa Monica which wasn’t great because I tend to get carsick.

Sentinel Dome Trail

This was a pretty easy trail. I believe it was about 2 miles and the hardest part was actually getting to the rocky mountain part as it got extremely steep. But once you reached the top, the view was extremely beautiful. It honestly didn’t look real. It was just a perfect view with the mountains, clouds, and the clear blue sky. At the top there was a big rock with a compass(shown below) on it which I thought looked really cool! I probably stood up there for a good 45 minutes, appreciating the view, and also trying to get some good pictures.

Valley View

Opposite of the mountains, we went down to the valley and finally saw some water. Especially in California during the summer, it was very dry and we were basically driving through the desert on the way to these parks. This one isn’t a trail so it’s easy to go to, but there’s not much else to do but just appreciate the scenery. Again, the pictures don’t do it justice, but take a look!

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park lie side by side so they are often referred to together.

Have you heard of the largest tree on earth? Did you know that it’s in California? Neither did I. I’m not sure if it’s actually the largest tree in the world, but that’s what they claim. It’s called the General Sherman and it’s a sequoia tree, which I will say are very big trees. It was difficult to get the entire tree in a picture. The first picture below is the General Sherman tree(I know it kind of just looks like an ordinary tree, it looks much bigger in person), and the second one is just a random sequoia on one of the paths! That one really shows how giant they are!

One of the trails had a fallen tree, and instead of getting rid of the giant tree, they turned it into a tunnel! How funny, but also fascinating that we would be able to walk inside of a tree. It’s just another thing that makes us realize how big these trees actually are.

 

Overall, as many trails as we’ve hiked, it’s essentially the same thing as we just walked and enjoyed the scenery, so there’s not really much else to talk about in this blog post. I definitely have more to say about the city though, which will be in the next post!