Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park. Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America

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1 July Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 Along the Hazelwood Trail in the Giant Forest-HDR Sequoia National Park, the second oldest national park in America, is south of and adjacent to Kings Canyon National Park, in the southern reaches of California s Sierra Nevada Range. Visiting photographers will find spectacular images of sequoias, the world s largest living trees, a glacier-carved valley resembling Yosemite, and high alpine landscapes. Dramatic waterfalls, lots of bears, and an abundance of spring wildflowers make these parks a must-visit summer destination. This newsletter describes the easier trails to the best tripod holes and offers tips to improve your sunny day photography in a deep forest. Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park

2 Issue page 2 On the Congress trail near the Generals Highway-HDR Ancient sequoia groves that grow only on the western slopes of California s Sierra Nevada Range are not as tall as California s coastal redwoods. Sequoias are larger in diameter than the slender coastal redwoods some are twice the diameter, up to 44 feet across at the base and they live much longer. The world s largest living tree is the General Sherman, in the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park, a quarter-mile walk from the parking lot. Walk the two-mile loop called the Congress Trail and photograph a hundred giants in two hours. One of the oldestlooking trees was named in honor of Chief Sequoyah, a Cherokee who developed a phonetic alphabet for his tribe. A few feet farther down the slope is the President Tree. Some outstanding groves can be photographed from the edge of the road. The biggest and best are standing on steep hillsides in hard-to-reach locations. If you have the time and energy, hike the Sequoia Trail, the Muir Trail, and the Crescent Meadow Trail to find and photograph more giant redwoods. In 1877, John Muir hiked into the area now called the Grant Grove and discovered sawmills working hard to level the forest. Before all the trees were cut, he lobbied congress to protect these forests. Thirteen years later in 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill to preserve the sequoia forests as our country s second national park. One week later, Congress tripled the size of the park and established another national park to protect the more northerly General Grant Groves. In 1940, the General Grant groves were merged into the newly created Kings Canyon National Park. Mineral King was added to Sequoia National Park in There are two entry points into these national parks. Coming from the south, follow Highway 198 through Visalia, California. This route becomes steep and winding to the Ash Mountain entrance. From the northwest direction, follow Highway 180, faster and more gradual, through Fresno and you ll enter the park near Grant Grove Village at the Big Stump Entrance. The Generals Highway connects the two park entry points and runs north and south on the west side of Sequoia Park. Highway 180 enters the park and veers northeast to end deep in the center of Kings Canyon. No roads enter these parks from Highway 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra. Camping and Lodging More than 1,200 campsites are located in these national parks. Of the twenty campgrounds in the area, Lodgepole and Dorst are the only campgrounds that accept advance reservations for summer months. All other campsites are available on a first-come basis. In late June, many of the campsites were still vacant and only a few patches of snow were visible in the woods. Arrive midweek to

3 Issue page 3 find a larger selection of campsites. There are rental cabins and lodges with hotel-style accommodations in both Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. During the busy summer season, these lodgings are booked. Mark your calendar and make your reservations a year in advance if you want a rustic cabin with a bath at Grant Grove Village or a deluxe hotel room at Wuksachi Village. The main reason to visit Sequoia National Park is to photograph the giant sequoia. The best groves and the largest and oldest living trees that are easily accessible are located in the Grant Grove area and farther south in the Giant Forest area between the General Sherman tree and Moro Rock. Kings Canyon appeals to hikers. The wild river and the waterfalls are worth a few days for photography. When you are planning your trip, go online and buy a trail guide with maps and descriptions a hiking guide to these parks that ranks trails as Easy, Moderate, or Difficult and breaks them down by location. You can quickly find all the easy hikes into Sequoia groves or hikes to waterfalls, lakes, or meadows. All the high country hikes fall into the Difficult Category. A good trail guide will include distances and elevation changes. When planning my visit, I went through my guidebook and marked all the hikes of five miles or less and then pieced them together to cover all the areas I wanted to explore and photograph. There are eight hundred miles of trails in these parks. I bookmarked all I wanted to hike in my pocket size trail guide. High Dynamic Range I carried my tripod on all my hikes on this trip. Weather reports predicted clear and sunny days for my visit. I expected very contrasty lighting conditions in these forests. I have recently been experimenting with the HDR technique using multiple bracketed exposures that are merged together using Photoshop into one single image containing all visible shadow details as well as details in the brightest highlights. No more washedout skies and black shadows. You can photograph the full range of lighting that s visible to the human eye, a blessing on a sunny summer day in a forest. The multiple exposure theory breaks down on windy days when trees and leaves are moving around. Giant sequoias don t move much in the wind. Five exposures in one-stop increments (on a solid tripod) usually give me the range I want for natural-looking images. Seven exposures improve extra-contrasty images. Read your camera manual and set up your camera for automatic bracketing of exposures and then shoot a few practice HDR exposures in your backyard before your next major photo trip. You may want to buy a few more media cards to hold all your extra exposures. Find more details on Exposure Fusion on my website. On the Sequoia Trail in Giant Forest-HDR Sequoia Park Trails All of the trails and trailheads in Sequoia National Park can be accessed from the Generals Highway, the main north/south highway through the west side of the park. You will find many easy trails to some beautiful sequoia groves in the area called the Giant Forest where there are three trailhead parking areas. The General Sherman Trail starts at a large parking area on the northern edge of the Giant Forest. On the west side of the Giant Forest is the Giant Forest Museum with a parking area near trails leading to Round Meadow and the Hazelwood Nature trail. Crescent Meadow, on the south side of the Giant Forest, is the trailhead for the Log Meadow and the Crescent Meadow Trails. From these trailheads, short and easy loop trails cross and connect with longer loop trails offering all-day hikes into some of the most beautiful parts of Sequoia National Park. Free shuttle busses connect all these trailheads. Park at one trailhead, explore all the trails you want, and return to your car on a shuttle, avoiding the long return hike.

4 Issue page 4 Plan Your Hikes Stone steps and a paved sidewalk lead from the General Sherman parking area three-hundred feet and ten minutes down to the base of the world s largest living tree, The General Sherman, a 2,200-year-old Sequoia grows in the bottom of a canyon, an area circled by the Congress Trail, a 1.9-mile loop trail. Some of the most dramatic trees and the world s largest are located there. The General Sherman, the world s largest tree-hdr Connecting to the south end of the Congress Trail is the larger and longer loop trail called the Trail of the Sequoias. This trail passes the Chief Sequoyah tree marked with a sign Trail of the Sequoias. This threemile trail climbs to a high ridgeline through many groves of ancient sequoias. Shooting from the higher trail means less distortion and fewer problems with converging tops of trees. Along these ridge trails, you will be shooting straight ahead with a level camera. With a wide-angle lens, you can capture the full height of distant groves, with a horizontal format, with straight and parallel trees. The Trail of the Sequoias winds along a north/south ridgeline, then crosses over to the east side where there are many more sequoia groves. I crossed several small streams by jumping from rock to rock. Another was crossed on a fallen log. Three miles down this trail, I spotted Log Meadow and the historic Hale Tharp cabin. From there, it was one more mile to the parking lot at Crescent Meadow where I caught the shuttle bus to the Giant Forest Museum. After a ten-minute wait, the bus to the Sherman parking lot arrived and I got a free ride back to my car. Starting and ending this longer loop hike at the General Sherman trail head, the total distance is 6.2 miles. By starting your hike at the General Sherman trailhead and ending at the Crescent Meadow trailhead, you will be able to hike and photograph your way through the best groves and you won t have to hike all the way back to your car. National Park shuttle busses run regularly between most of the trailheads in Sequoia Park. Leave your car at your lodge or campground and get a free ride back at the end of the day. I hiked these trails in both directions, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, to find many different views of the giant trees in different light. If you don t like steep trails or long trails, park your car in the large lot across the street from the Giant Forest Museum and walk north a few hundred yards to the Big Trees Trail that circles Round Meadow. It s a halfmile around a wide, level, paved trail that follows the edge of a marshy meadow, partly on wooden boardwalks. Sequoias grow in the moist soil around the meadow. I shot across the meadow with a telephoto to capture small A Sequoia grove on the far side of Round Meadow-HDR

5 Issue page 5 groves of distant trees and used a wide-angle lens on my backup camera to shoot streams and fallen trees beneath nearby groves. Round Meadow is a favorite of the local bears. Some were black and others were shades of light brown. Several were grazing on their favorite grasses on the meadow while their cubs were safely fifty feet up in nearby trees. A 300 mm telephoto got me close enough. When they decided to cross the trail, I moved way back. From the Hazelwood loop trail, it s a short walk back to the parking area at the Giant Forest Museum. Spend some time checking out the exhibits across the Generals Highway at the Giant Forest Museum. A ranger on duty will answer your questions about the many miles of trails through the Giant Forest section of Sequoia National Park. Buy a trail guide here to make your explorations easier. Circle Meadow Trail Another great location for wildlife and groves of sequoias is southwest of the Congress Loop Trail, south of the General Sherman tree. At the point where the Alta Trail bisects the lower end of the Congress Loop Trail, head south on the unpaved trail to the Cattle Cabin. Several very large trees and one perfect grove of twelve trees, called the Founder s Group, are on this trail around the east side of Circle Meadow. None of these trees have burn marks around the bottoms. When the trail reaches the south end of the meadow, it crosses a narrow stream and follows the west side of Circle Meadow. Views across the meadow, a wide field of green corn lilies, were worth the hike. Afternoon light perfectly illuminated small groves of red-barked Grazing on Round Meadow Leaving the Round Meadow area, I crossed the Generals Highway and followed a short loop through huge trees around the Hazelwood Nature trail. The groves of sequoias were surrounded with blooming dogwood trees a beautiful combination in early summer. This trail is level and has some massive individual sequoias with huge bases. Dogwoods in a sequoia grove-hdr Corn lilies on Circle Meadow-HDR trees. Deer were grazing on the south end of the meadow and several bears were busy on the north end. The large tan squirrels around Circle Meadow are yellow-bellied marmots. This loop trail around Circle Meadow is one of my favorites. As you follow the trail north, watch for the junction with the Alta Trail where you will head northeast for a halfmile. When you reach the Congress Trail, turn north and pass the McKinley Tree. On the west side of that trail is a sign marked Photo Point. Walk up the short side trail and turn around. You will see a clear view of

6 Issue page 6 the free-standing sequoia for a perfect vertical photograph of the tree named for our 25th president. From here, it s a fifteen-minute walk back to the General Sherman tree. If your car is parked at the top of the hill, catch the shuttle bus at the Handicap-Only parking lot at the bottom of the hill for a free ride and avoid the 300-foot climb. Moro Rock and Crescent Meadow Just south of the Giant Forest Museum is a paved side road heading east marked Moro Rock and Crescent Meadow. Keep to the right at the next junction and find a place to park near the trailhead at the base of Moro Rock. Pack a medium range telephoto with a polarizer for a 300-foot climb up a huge granite dome on the edge of the deep valley cut by the middle fork of the Kaweah River. Stone stairs start up the east side of the dome for great views of the Great Western Divide and then switch back to the west side for views of California s Coastal Range (visible only on a clear day). Handrails and lots of stone stairs (I lost count at 375) make the climb easy. Don t look down if heights bother you. Looking south from the top of Moro Rock Guardrails surround the narrow, flat summit of Moro Rock at 6,725 feet. Patches of magenta penstamon grow from cracks in the vertical walls of the granite dome. You don t want to be on the top of Moro Rock during a thunderstorm, especially with a metal tripod. Check the sky for dark clouds before starting the climb. After climbing down, and before retrieving your car, get a shot of the free standing dome from a distance, by walking east along the road a hundred yards. From Moro Rock, the road loops around to a junction marked Crescent Meadows. Turn right and, in a short distance, you will reach the Parker Grove, one of my favorite sequoia groves. Park and walk around to the backside Parker Grove on the road to Crescent Meadow-HDR of the grove for a better composition. A hundred yards farther up the road is a tunnel cut through a fallen sequoia with an eight-foot height limit. On a busy summer weekend, traffic backs up here as everyone parks their car in the tunnel and gets their photo taken. To avoid the traffic jam, just drive around the marked Bypass Route to the parking lot at the Crescent Meadows trailhead. Walk either direction around nearby Crescent Meadow and you are sure to see a few bears. There are no more grizzly bears in California. The black bears can be black, brown, or light honey colored. I photographed bears in all three colors while walking the loop trail around Crescent Meadow. They are not aggressive but keep your distance and do not approach them, especially the mother bears with babies. For this 1.7-mile loop hike, carry a wide-angle lens for the meadows and a long telephoto for the bears. At the far end of the loop trail, you pass a fallen and burned-out sequoia that has been converted into a cabin with a stone chimney and a wooden door. Hale Tharp homesteaded the Log Meadow area on the east side of Crescent Meadow in He grazed his cattle there long before the national park was established. Hale Tharp was the first white man to discover the giant sequoias.

7 Issue page 7 Waterfalls The largest and most dramatic waterfall in Sequoia National Park is Tokopah Falls, dropping 1,200 feet from the eastern end of the glacier-formed Tokopah Valley. The trailhead is located near the Lodgepole Campground, just off the Generals Highway. Drive past the general store and Visitor Center. Keep to the right at the campsite permit office and drive past the campground. Park near the Walter Fry Nature Center and walk across the bridge over the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River. At the base of Tokopah Falls On the north side of the stream is a large sign marking the trailhead. This 3.8-mile roundtrip hike is rated easy and, for most of the distance, the unpaved trail follows the edge of the Kaweah River and rises very gradually. The last quarter-mile of the trail to the overlook at the base of the falls is a bit steeper with stone steps and loose rocks crossing an avalanche field. The trail passes many small waterfalls and cascades on the feeder streams that cross the trail and drop into the river. Some are wide enough to require bridges. You ll be rock hopping across the others. Large patches of late spring wildflowers line the trail. I saw lots of squirrels and other critters. It s a popular area for bears because of the nearby campgrounds. When the trail breaks out in the open again, a wide, flat stone offers an excellent spot for a photograph showing the full 1,200 feet of the long cascade down into the valley. A few hundred more feet up the trail is as far as you ll get. A sign warns against climbing any farther up the canyon and no closer to the waterfall. A 24 mm wide-angle lens, with your camera in a vertical format, will cover the full height of the falls plus a little sky. Hopefully, you will arrive just as an interesting cloud pattern passes over the canyon rim. There are lots of small cascades and unnamed falls on the many streams in Sequoia National Park. Tokopah is the must-see waterfall and the must-do hike. Heading up or heading down, you ll pass whole families. Tokopah is the main attraction for a thousand campers at Lodgepole, so start hiking in the early morning or expect some trail traffic, especially on weekends. It s worth it. The Lakes Trail Small lakes high in the mountains above Tokopah Falls are great destinations for a day hike or an overnight backpacking trip. Follow the signs from Generals Highway to the Wolverton Trailhead parking area, one mile beyond the General Sherman parking area. A sign on the north side of the parking lot marks the Lakes Trailhead. I parked near the trailhead sign and climbed a few concrete steps to begin a long slow climb up the ridgeline of a moraine deposited by the Tokopah Glacier a million years ago. One mile up the ridge, the trail reached Wolverton Creek where I was slowed by many small cascades dropping through the forest. Each photo required seven bracketed exposures to capture the extreme range of morning light on the water against a dark ponderosa forest beyond. The only way to capture scenes like these is with HDR techniques. Morning light on Wolverton Creek along the Lakes Trail-HDR

8 Issue page 8 Just before the two-mile point on the Lakes Trail, I turned left onto the Panther Gap Trail, crossed another stream and in a halfmile passed the Hump Trail, a shorter but steeper trail to Heather Lake. I continued on the Lakes Trail around the base of the 8,973- foot tall stone spire called the Watchtower. The Watchtower above Tokopah Falls The trail follows switchbacks up to an incredible view of Tokopah Falls, 1,500 feet below. The trail continues eastward with panoramic views up and down the valley, then reaches the east end of the shortcut called the Hump trail. A short trek through a stunted alpine forest took me to the edge of Heather Lake where no camping is allowed. Emerald Lake, where camping is allowed, is a half-mile farther up the trail, switch backing up and over a ridge. Pear Lake, in a glacial bowl far above tree line, is two miles farther up and over another granite ridge, six miles from the trailhead back at Wolverton. You ll need a permit to camp at Emerald or Pear Lake. A day hike to Heather Lake and back fills a moderately strenuous full day. An overnight trek will provide some fantastic photo opportunities, especially twenty minutes after sunset when alpenglow reflects on small lakes in granite bowls. If you enjoy exploring and photographing the panoramic scenery around high alpine lakes, these are the easiest lakes to reach in Sequoia National Park. My Favorite Trails: Big Tree Trail around Round Meadow Hazelwood Loop Trail Circle Meadow Loop Trail Log Meadow and Crescent Meadow Kings Canyon Kings Canyon is on the north side of Sequoia National Park. The most direct access is through the Big Stump Entrance, east of Fresno. It s thirty miles from the Big Stump Entrance near Grant Grove Village to the end of Highway 180 in the middle of Kings Canyon. The main reason to visit Kings Canyon National Park is to hike the trails and photograph the wild river that pours through this 8,000-foot deep canyon much deeper than the Grand Canyon and similar to Yosemite Valley. Kings Canyon is not where you go to find the giant sequoia. The largest trees here are ponderosa and sugar pines. Highway 180 is the only road into and out of Kings Canyon. The steep and winding road drops a thousand feet into the canyon and then climbs high above the Kings River as it passes overlooks offering spectacular views of the canyon s depths. In the distance to the east, you will see the higher peaks in the Sierra Range. At its narrowest point, the canyon is only two hundred feet wide. The river is eight-hundred-feet below the road. The tops of the canyon rims are thousands of feet above the road a dramatic sight. It s not easy to include all this in your viewfinder. Looking east to the Horseshoe Bend at the entry into Kings Canyon

9 Issue page 9 For much of the thirty-mile drive, the Kings River flows beside the road. In early summer, white water crashes downstream over huge boulders, sending spray high into the air. Walking along the riverbank requires caution. There are plenty of wide spots at overlooks above the canyon. A half-mile east of the entrance to Bowden Cave, on the left side of the road, is an incredible geological pattern. A flat, vertical stone wall is covered with zigzag, up-and-down stripes. Even though it covers an area 80 feet wide and fifty feet high, you will probably never spot it as you are driving, unless you are watching for it. Park at the nearest wide spot and walk back with a normal-to-short telephoto lens. shoot your waterfalls or arrive later in the summer after the sierra snow pack has melted off. Wait until early October and you will also find autumn foliage on the maples, cottonwoods, dogwoods, and aspen. You will find lots of cottonwoods along the Kings River and groves of aspen near the Lakes Trailhead at Wolverton in Sequoia Park. Geological patterns near Bowden Cave Several waterfalls drop into the Kings River along this stretch of road. Grizzly Falls is five miles east of Bowden Cave and is a short walk from the parking area on the north side of the road. Grizzly Falls cascades eighty feet down a steep slope creating a bridal veil effect as it crashes over large boulders stacked up at the bottom. In early summer, especially on a windy day, there is so much spray at the bottom that your lens will be covered with water droplets before you can release your shutter. I gave up on the wide-angle close-up images and moved way back to shoot here with a mm telephoto zoom, framing small portions of the cascades. Grizzly Falls should be easier to photograph in late summer when the park streams start to dry up. In early summer, all the rivers in these parks are roaring, waterfalls are full and spray and mist is flying dramatic but not easy to photograph when your lens is covered with spray. Move back and use a longer lens to The water that drops over Grizzly Falls comes from the remote Grizzly Lakes deep in the Monarch Wilderness, a huge roadless part of the Sierra Range that stretches for many miles to the north. Farther up Highway 180 are four campgrounds (with a total of 336 first-come campsites) and Cedar Grove Lodge, with twenty motel rooms, a snack bar serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a grocery store. This is the only lodging available in the heart of this national park if you don t want to camp. Rooms #1 and #2 are closest to the river. All the rooms at Cedar Grove Lodge are basic with hot showers. There s no TV, no microwaves, and no refrigerators. They are sold out At the base of Grizzly Falls

10 Issue page 10 At the base of Roaring River Falls through the summer season. Like most national park lodging, it has become necessary to reserve your rooms as close to a year in advance as possible, especially if you want a river view or ocean view room, or your favorite cabin on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It s a long drive from the cheap motels in Fresno to the trailhead at the end of Highway 180. If you want to get an early morning start for a hike into the high country and you don t want to sleep in your car, check out the Cedar Grove Lodge. Three miles east of Cedar Grove Lodge is Roaring River Falls on the south side of the canyon. From the parking lot, it s a ten-minute walk up a paved path to the perfect spot to set up your tripod. The Roaring River pours into an upper basin then spills over the rim to drop forty feet to the stream that flows a few hundred feet more to the Kings River below. Most of the falls are not visible from the viewpoint, hidden by a bend in the canyon above. A 35 mm lens on your fullframe digital camera will work well here for both vertical and horizontal compositions. The view of the falls is straight on and framed by a large Jeffrey Pine on the right and two red firs on the left. From mid-morning until late afternoon, there is too much direct sunlight on Roaring River Falls. Wait until early evening to arrive here, when the sun has dropped over the slopes of Sentinel Ridge to the west. Steep canyon walls will prevent you from getting any closer to the falls. A short distance back from the base of Roaring River Falls is a small trail marker that points toward the Zumwalt Meadows Trail which follows the base of ten-thousandfoot Avalanche Peak along the edge of Kings River. For a short distance, the trail passes through a small burned-over pine grove that is starting a rebirth with a dense carpet of green bracken ferns. Zumwalt Meadow Trail loops around a large, grassy meadow, and follows wooden boardwalks across several marshy spots. You ll find good views of the meadow from the elevated portion of the trail as it climbs through a jumble of rocks that appears to be an avalanche that dropped from Avalanche Peak. You can park along Highway 180 at Zumwalt Meadows, cross the river on a small suspension bridge, and circle the meadow, skipping the hike from Roaring River Falls. In early summer, you ll find mosquitoes around the meadows in these parks. Pack an efficient repellent along with your sunscreen. A long sleeve shirt helps, too. Most of the trails into Kings Canyon start at Road s End. From this trailhead, hikers can access the John Muir Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail (Canada to Mexico) and the trail to the top of Mt. Whitney. You can tell by the great number of parked cars that this is serious backpacking country. Highway 180 stops at the Road s End parking lot. Trails continue up both sides of the Kings River. During the summer season, a ranger is usually on duty at the trailhead permit station at the end of the road. If not, go to the Cedar Grove Visitor Center. Inquire about local trail conditions at either of these locations. Sometimes a bridge farther up the canyon may wash out or high water in the spring can make hopping across one of the many side streams dangerous.

11 Issue page 11 No permit is necessary for day hikes, but you ll need one for overnight treks into the backcountry. Requests for wilderness permits can be reserved no earlier than March 1st and no later than three weeks before the start of your trip. You can pick up your permit at the ranger stations. Some first-come permits are available after 1:00 pm on the day before departure. If you are not ready for an overnight backpack trip over the Sierra Nevada Range, grab your daypack and your camera and head up the trail that starts at the permit station along the north side of the Kings River. You ll soon cross a wooden bridge over Copper Creek. From that point on along this trail, you will have to cross swollen side streams by jumping across on boulders or doing a tight-rope walk across fallen logs. I packed my Five-Ten Canyoneer river walking boots for my earlysummer trip and just walked through the cold streams with the aid of my tripod with the legs extended. I packed my Leki walking poles but found that the tripod helped with the stream crossings and held my camera steady. Two miles beyond the Permit Station at the trailhead, turn right onto the Bubbs Creek Trail and cross the bridge over the Kings River. Turn right again at the junction onto the trail to Zumwalt Meadows and return to the trailhead on the south side of the river, making a four-mile loop trip into a half-day hike. If you are up for an all-day hike, don t cross the river at Bubbs Creek bridge. Bear left and continue up the Paradise Valley Trail for another mile for some great views looking back down the canyon. Two miles up the Paradise Valley Trail is a short side trail leading to the base of Mist Falls. The best viewpoint is a large flat rock a hundred feet below the falls. The river spreads out and drops over a wide granite ledge to fall forty-five feet into a boulder-filled basin, creating lots of mist (and lots of wildflowers that attract lots of hummingbirds). This eight-mile round-trip hike is best done in late summer when lower water levels make photographing Mist Falls easier. Don t stay too long at the falls. You don t want to hike back down the trail in the dark. On the way back, cross over the metal bridge to the south side of the Kings River and turn right onto the trail to Zumwalt Meadow. After crossing Avalanche Creek, you ll pass through deep woods of ponderosa pine and cedar. Along the west side trail is a large area covered with low manzanita and scattered with very large boulders that have rolled down from Avalanche Peak. The biggest rock is the size of a house and is marked with a visitor s initials and the date, After passing close to the base of Avalanche Peak, the trail reaches another junction. Continue to Zumwalt Meadow or cross a narrow, steel-beam bridge over the river and follow the trail a short distance back to the parking lot at Road s End. Leave your car in the right spot and it will be sitting in the shade when you return. Zumwalt Meadow in Kings Canyon-HDR Planning Your Trip If you are not a hiker, two nights in Kings Canyon should give you enough time to photograph Grizzly Falls, Roaring River Falls, stop at the viewpoints along the Kings River and walk the loop around Zumwalt Meadow. Add another day if you want to hike to Mist Falls. Stay three to four nights in Sequoia National Park and you can hike up to Tokopah Falls, walk the loop trails around all the meadows in the Giant Forest and climb to the top of Moro Rock. Add an extra day for time to explore the Mineral King area on the southern edge of Sequoia National Park. Have a great trip and send me an !!

12 On the trail to Tokopah Falls Backpackers will need a bear-proof food container to avoid losing their food to the bears. These tough plastic cylinders are available in park stores. If you leave your car parked at the trailhead, do not leave any food visible inside your car. Bear-proof food storage boxes are provided near the Road s End parking lot and at some wilderness camps. Day hikers should double bag their lunches in zip-up bags. No gasoline is available in these National Parks. You can find a gas station in the Sequoia National Forest at Stony Creek Village along Generals Highway, halfway between Grant Grove Village and Wuksachi Village. There are groceries available at Grant Grove Village, Lodgepole Village, and Cedar Grove Village. Emergency cans of gasoline may be purchased at Grant Grove Market. Yellow-bellied marmots are causing problems in trailhead parking lots in the Mineral King area of Sequoia National Park. Marmots climb into vehicle engine compartments and chew through radiator hoses to get at ethylene glycol antifreeze, poisonous to most animals but attractive to marmots. They also chew through brake hoses and electrical wiring. Check under your hood before leaving any Mineral King trailhead parking area. Advance campsite reservations are only available at: Lodgepole and Dorst Campgrounds Lodging reservations online at: Wilderness permits: Wilderness permit information: My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and experience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980 s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, England, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America. Photograph America Newsletter is published quarterly (four issues/year) by Robert Hitchman assisted by technical associate/wife, Katherine Post Office Box 86, Novato, CA All contents of this newsletter copyright Robert Hitchman Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.

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