Kings Canyon National Park

Today was a very cold morning so I didn't really get started until around ten. I got into the park pretty quick since I had camped just outside the border. I stopped by the visitor center and asked for recommendations and info.

My first stop was the Grant grove, which contains one of the largest trees, the largest by width. There was also a cool dead tree that had been hollowed out sown the middle and fallen over. Part of the trail actually went right down the middle of the tree and out the other side. A bit like the tree in yosemite that had the road going through the base of the trunk, which fell over years ago.

The second stop was a viewpoint called Panoramic Viewpoint. There was a two and a half mile road that gained a thousand feet, and then a short hike to get up to the viewpoint. The viewpoint looked out over all of the major peaks and canyons, and it was a nice preview of the park.

After doing the climb up to the viewpoint I decided that I didn't feel like doing any of the other climbing in the park which would have amounted to more than a mile and a half. Instead I decided to just leave my bike at the visitor center and hitch out and back, since it was a dead end road anyways.

I got a ride from a Russian family that I had met in Grants Grove and at the viewpoint. I had mentioned I was going to hitch when I talked with them but they already had four people in their car so I didn't ask them. Instead they made room for me and we sat three in the back seat.

Greg and Anastasia were a younger couple, and Greg's parents, Alex and Kate had come to visit them for a vacation. The younger couple had actually just finished hitching across Canada, which is why they were extra accommodating to help me.

We went down into the park together and stopped at most of the major attractions to see them and take pictures. There were a couple of nice waterfalls and a lot of good views. They were staying at the end of the park in a campground, so they left me at the roadside to try to hitch back to the top. They promised me that if they saw me on the way back the next day they would pick me up.

I wasn't waiting more than half an hour before an older British couple picked me up. They had spent the day going further into the park towards a backcountry waterfall, and had only seen one other person on their trip. They took me back up to the bike, and I had enough light left to make it out of the park and most of the way down the mountain into warmer areas to camp.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61247038@N02/sets/72157631808642826/

Sequoia National Park

This morning I had a large climb into the park, from 1000 feet to over 7000 feet. A large portion of that was done on the park entrance road which was a very narrow mountain road with a lot of steep switchbacks. It was relatively early in the morning, so traffic wasn't very bad. It was still a tiring climb with a lot a of breaks.

Probably the best part of the climb was that there was a mile long section of construction. While the actual construction was pretty annoying it was still nice because they only let traffic through once an hour. After I got through the construction I had an hour long period that there were no cars coming up behind me. Since it was still early in the morning no one was headed out of the park either, so I has the entire road to myself. I road down the middle of the road, still climbing, but less steeply. At that point the road was through a nice forested area with a lot of large ponderosas and a few sequoias mixed in.

By the time I got to the visitor center I had traffic passing me again, but I wanted to take a break anyways and do a little bit of exploring in the area. There was a small meadow surrounded by sequoias, since it provided enough water and sunlight for the trees to grow.

I continued on my way along the road to get to a few other groves of trees, especially the really big ones, like the Sherman tree, which is the largest in the world. Finally I got through the park to an area of national forest where I could camp for the night before I continue on my way to Kings Canyon tomorrow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61247038@N02/sets/72157631808258395/

Hitchhiker

So far this trip I have seen the same hitchhiker four different times. The first time I met him was at the Bryce Canyon visitor center. I stopped by to up water bottles and he was filling out a job application. The second time was at the bottom of the Red Canyon, which is just west of the park. He was at an intersection with his thumb out towards Zion. The third time was when I was in the back of a pickup to get through the tunnels in Zion, where bikes aren't allowed. He had his thumb out so the driver stopped for him as well. We talked a bit about where we were both headed, and how we had seen each other before. He continued on in the pickup while I got out after the tunnels. The last time I saw him was at the visitor center in Zion. Apparently he had left his phone in a bathroom to charge and someone turned it in to lost and found. I don't think I'll be seeing him again, since his plan was to head towards the Grand Canyon next, while I'm headed west again.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Once I got to Bryce I found out something really cool about the park which helped me out a lot. Apparently the park is too overpopulated during the summer months, so the park runs a shuttle bus along all the tourist points in the park. This gave me a break and saved some time and effort.

The major attraction at Bryce is the hoodoos which are tall rock spires. Basically it is part of the side of a plateau that has eroded strangely, not really a canyon at all.

I decided to use the shuttle bus a bit, but also take advantage of not having the bike to go hiking along the rim trail to see a bit more of the park. I have to say there is an amazing variety to the people in the parks. Most of them don't seem to be very much the outdoor type, but instead just the general tourist. There are a huge number of foreigners as well, some with large tour groups and others not. Most people also have gigantic cameras, many of whom probably also don't know how to even take it off of the auto setting.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61247038@N02/sets/72157631685089764/

More bad news

I woke up this morning to another flat tire, on the rear wheel. Apparently I missed a thorn, which had worked it's way further into the tire after I changed it last night, so I changed my third flat tire in the morning.

After that it was relatively uneventful until I got to the Capitol Reef area. Then the wind started to really pick up a lot, and of course it was a headwind. I saw some cool petroglyphs on the way in, and then went most of the way down the scenic drive in the park, until I was going up a steep road into a strong headwind, and didn't think I would see much of anything different I kept going. The way back was much nicer with the downhill and the tailwind.

That was until I got back to the campground area, where my rear tire blew out completely. I pushed my bike into the camping area and started to change the tire again, when I realized that the actual tire had worn through, and not just a popped tube.

I sat there for a bit trying to figure out my options until the camp hosts stopped by. I asked them about the area, and they didn't think there was anything close but offered to call the rangers. A bit later a ranger stopped by and told me he was going to call a place in the nearby town, about ten miles away. He took the info about the tire and rim and then left. A while later he came back and told me the store did have a suitable tire but that they would close in ten minutes. He offered to drive me and my bike there, so I threw everything in the back of his truck and he drove me into town. We arrived around 4:05 and the store was supposed to close at 4:00. Fortunately the owner hadn't arrived yet to lock up, so I was able to buy the new tire. It's a bit wider than the one I had, and more of a mountain bike tread, but it fits just fine. For $27 I was able to get back on the road and didn't even have to hitch a ride or take any extra time to get things up and running again.