What trees?
Our last day in the park and we decided to go to a completely different area. Mariposa Grove. A mountain covered in large sequoia trees. The sky was blue but a little colder and off we strode once again into the unknown.
The sequacio is a tree with a reddish trunk that grows very tall. It somehow burns through the centre creating a cave like feature or a tunnel, sometimes two fuse together. These trees looked as if they were growing out of our atmosphere and into space. They were definitely out of this world and made me feel like a speck of dust.
Many of the trees had been named in relation to their shape or size. Which made me think as to how we are named. The trees are named in relation to how they turn out where as we are named with hope of what we will be, by association to others or meaning of the name. I imagine what my name would be if it were based on who I have become?!
There were so many trees as we went higher and higher. Twice as high as the top of Snowdon, to those amazing views that we had become used to.
On the way back down there were more trees and I learned new ways of using the camera by copying others! Hence some of the strange angles. Never too old to learn!
And of course there were more animals and birds. This is what were in search of:
This is what we found!
No bears! Although they were seen in this area today. We also saw flowers!
Following the 3 hour hike it was time to find lunch and what a great place to stop at the pioneers museum. Once again something completely different in this amazingly beautiful national park. How interesting how we decide what and how parts of the world should be preserved. Thank you John Muir for choosing to preserve this and enable others to save other parts of the USA.
As we left the park for the last time we saw the signs for wild fires and there in the distance was the smoke. Not something we wanted to see. It sparked the discussion about prior to our ability to manage and extinguish fires what happened? Is this a natural way of actually protecting the land, killing virus and such like, making the ground more fertile for re-growth. Or was everything destroyed and took millennia to re-grow. I am guessing the former.
Our next stop was Bass lake before returning to our hotel for the last time. I will be sad to leave here in the morning.
