Sunday, July 16, 2017

California 2017: Day 9

On Thursday morning, we decided to change things up (and not spend the morning among the sequoias), so we made reservations to tour Crystal Cave. I checked with a park ranger, who gave me advice on driving times from our lodge to the cave, but we got there much more quickly than we had expected and had lots of time to wait. There aren't any trails by the cave, and the mosquitoes were terrible, so the boys and I sat in the car to read while Gene paced the parking lot, listening to an audiobook.

It was finally time for our tour, at 10:30, so we hiked down 300 feet to the cave entrance.


The streams and little waterfalls were gorgeous.






Entrance to Crystal Cave 


We've done a couple of cave tours lately (including Carlsbad Caverns), so this one was quite small in comparison. We did see a running stream inside, which was new for us,



and at one point, the cave guide turned out all the lights. I have never been in complete darkness before. It was eerie! 


After the guided tour, we hiked back up the hill and headed to lunch before downtime in the lodge. 


In the afternoon, we considered hiking up Moro Rock, but we were pretty tired from the previous day's long hikes and the morning climb, so instead, we just hiked some shorter trails near Moro Rock.




Tree huggers!




 The Triple Tree -- three trees have grown together at the base




I find nature rejuvenating and this trip forced us to unplug. We had very spotty WiFi (we were maybe connected for a couple of hours over the course of four days), and it forced us focus on our surroundings. Sequoia is a beautiful place to disconnect!

No comments:

Post a Comment