Road Trip through the CA National Parks

Best Road trip in the U.S.  

July, 2011

 Before headin back to LA, I met up with my old friend Chris, back from my days at good ol UWEC.

He also was living in San Diego, so I picked him up and we took off driving North to the great Sequoia National Park! Endless giant trees in every direction. 

We spent the week camping whereever we felt, and driving to all the spots deemed cool on the map :) It was a week full of nature, animals, and snapshots of beautiful scenery. Generally watching the sunset from a new spot every night and having a day filled with new adventures and mini hikes. A place to return to with more time to enjoy the long hikes and backpack in and out.

After the Sequoia National Park we headed through King's Canyon, which was truly one of my FAVORITE spots on our drive through the mountains. We found a nice FREEZING cold river to play in and were swept away through the rapids... only the small ones of corse. :) After drying out on the rocks and laying in the sun, we continued our Journey out of King's Canyon and into Yellowstone National Park.


Although the waterfalls and huge rock faces were gorgeously beautiful, I got the impression that this National Park was like Disney World's Magic Castle, only for outdoorsie people. There were people EVERYWHERE. And I mean crowded!!! Again this would be different if we could have been able to spend more time backpacking further off the main trials, but either way it was fun and saw a lot of cool sights. 

When it was time to head back towards San Diego, we got up past 9,000 feet elevation and had heaps of SNOW on the ground.... I couldn't help but to make a JULY SNOW ANGEL!!! What could be more fun than that?!?!?..... a snowball fight!!!! So after Chris and I got tired of packing ice cold snow balls and our hands were turning blue, we decided to hop back into the car and make our way back down the mountain.

A few more quick stops along the winding highway to snap some photos and stretch our legs from all the driving.... and to maybe give the brakes on the car a little brake. :)                                                              A great trip through the 3 National Parks, to one day hopefully return to and spend more time hikin and camping off the beaten path!!!! Thanks for showing me around Chris! I had an awesome time!! :)