More Tucker!

 We have been asked for more Tucker in the blog, so for you Tucker fans, here goes!

Kings Canyon NP (Part 3)

After hiking in shorts and t-shirts on Sunday, the weather turned dark and cold.  We drove up out of the canyon to the Grant Grove area of the park, which is higher at 6,500 feet and (since we had no internet to find out), we ran right into a snowstorm.  We hunkered down for the night and in the morning did some short drives and hikes and spent some time at the visitors center. 

It was VERY foggy in the morning:

Lynnae went fishing on Hume Lake (didn't catch anything but a friendly fisherman who was doing better gave us two fish--trout tacos tonight!)

And we explored the inlet creek of the lake.

Kings Canyon National Park (Part 2)

On our last day in Kings Canyon, we took a longer hike up one of the side canyons to above Mist Falls.  This hike was one of the most spectacular we have ever done.  This hike is the first leg of a 42-mile loop that is quite popular and goes deep into the high country to the 12,000-foot level and traverses several lakes and a few passes.  Our backpacking days are likely over, but we got a glimpse of the beauty of this area on our day hike of ten miles.  At some points we were hiking below sheer granite cliffs that rose over a mile high on either side of us, while the Kings river roiled madly near the trail for nearly the entire hike.

Kings Canyon National Park (Part 1)

Outside of California, not many people know about Kings Canyon.  It is another glacially carved valley like Yosemite, only different.  We were excited to explore it and spend a few weeks there.  The key difference between Yosemite and Kings Canyon is that Yosemite Valley is about a mile to a mile and a half wide, while Kings Canyon is only a half mile to a mile wide, and steeper from the back to the front of the valley.  So Yosemite had roads built deep into the valley over a hundred years ago.  Now there are hotels and stores and lots of campgrounds all through the valley, so while it is very beautiful, it is quite popular and crowded. In Kings Canyon. the road barely penetrates to the entrance of the valley (about as far as El Capitan, for those who know Yosemite).  So the real deep valley of Kings Canyon must be hiked in to.  We spent a wonderful five days deep in the canyon and hiked a lot.  Here are some highlight pictures of the area:

A little R & R

After spending a month in Yosemite, after two weeks in Lone Pine, which was after two weeks in Death Valley...we were in need of a civilization fix.  We found a nice RV park in Fresno which was within a mile of every store and service one could want.  Over the course of five days in Fresno we got new tires for the truck, did laundry, had our trailer furnace repaired, had Tucker washed and waxed, washed the truck, shopped at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, ate some Thai food, went to a great music performance by Asleep at the Wheel, Lynnae got a pedicure, we both got haircuts and filled the truck with diesel and the trailer with propane.  We were set to head to the mountains again!

Tioga Road

On our last full day in Yosemite, we took advantage of the opening for the season of the road that goes up through the Yosemite high country and over 10,000-foot Tioga pass.  It was a cold and overcast day, but the mountains were beautiful.  I thought I would highlight some of Lynnae's pictures on this post, since she took some great ones that day.

Another environmental crime

I wrote a while back about Los Angeles' theft of water from the Owens Valley a hundred years ago.  Unfortunately San Francisco also had a darker side to its development and growth.  After the 1906 earthquake, when much of the city burned in part due to lack of water, the city set out to secure a source of water and lighted on Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.  It is inconceivable today, but San Francisco managed to get a bill passed in Congress allowing them to dam the "other Yosemite Valley" and create a reservoir.  Wrote John Muir:  "I have always called it the 'Tuolomne Yosemite' for it is a wonderfully exact counterpart of the Merced Yosemite, not only in its sublime rocks and waterfalls, but in the gardens, groves and meadows of its flowery park-like floor."  This valley was inundated with hundreds of feet of water and is still the source of drinking water for millions of people in the Bay Area.  There has been a small movement to drain Hetch Hetchy and restore a second Yosemite Valley, but that is unlikely to gain general approval.  Our visit included a short hike to massive Wapama Falls and lovely views of the surrounding cliffs.