By Abigail Lewis

Like most kids, I loved sleeping outdoors. Sometimes my mom took us camping, but more often it was the Girl Scouts. Singing songs around a blazing campfire while millions of tiny points of light emerged in the darkening sky took me away from everything that felt ordinary about growing up in suburbia.

At some point I decided both Girl Scouts and camping were uncool, and later as I finished school and launched into adulthood, life became so demanding that loading up the car and pitching a tent seemed tedious. But now with a young child on summer vacation and a limited budget, the outdoors again beckoned.

My daughter and I chose as our destination King’s Canyon National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada, the largest U.S. mountain range. Lesser known than Yosemite and with a fraction of the visitors, Kings Canyon is equally beautiful and far more tranquil.

Meeting the Ancestors
Just past the entrance on Route 180 is Big Stump Trail, so we stopped for our first glimpse. True to its name, the gentle path leads past an 1880s logging site, a graveyard of giant sequoias. One stump has stairs leading to a surface the width of three freeway lanes. Here, too, the oldest tree known to humans—4,100 years—was carved up and shipped to museums.

But the General Grant Tree, officially designated “The Nation’s Christmas Tree,” still stands as a living national shrine, a memorial to those who died in war. The second-largest tree on our planet, it’s not the oldest here—a mere 1,700-year-old in a grove of 2,000 to 3,000-year-old sequoias. Some of these trees were sprouting up around the time of the Trojan horse, long before Jesus is said to have lived. If you want to feel grounded and connected to the earth, hug one.

Several campgrounds are available in the Grant Grove area nearest the visitor center, as well as rustic cabins, a museum, food and showers, but we preferred to be closer to Hume Lake, where the chilly water is still swimmable on a sunny day, and paddling is easy for rafts and kayaks.

This popular area had another appeal; we’d heard so many bear stories that my daughter was experiencing “bearanoia” and sensed safety in numbers. Indeed, there are a number of black bears (which actually range from cinnamon to jet black) in the park, and while seeing one from a distance was appealing, she adamantly did not welcome a visitor to our campsite. We took all the recommended precautions—no food, toothpaste or even scented lotions in the tent—but finding fresh bear scat by the lake before our morning dip decidedly did not help.

The Heart of the Forest
On the third day we drove an hour further into the park, to an idyllic spot in Cedar Grove, in the heart of the deep canyon hollowed by glaciers 3 million years ago. This really felt like bear country, so we sent out a prayer as we sat by our campfire that first night, thanking the bears for sharing their beautiful forest home with us, asking if they wouldn’t mind foraging in another part of the canyon on the nights we were there. They must have heard us; we never saw an animal bigger than a squirrel.

Our one hike in this area was led by an affable and knowledgeable guide from the visitors center. He pointed out native Ponderosa pine and cedar, as well as trees sprouted from seeds brought by adventurous birds. He also led us to bedrock mortars—holes in the granite formed by generations of Monache and Yokut tribes grinding acorns and other nuts on the rocks.

Although swimming is discouraged in the swift Kings River (the largest number of deaths in the area occur by drowning), if you are very careful—and don’t mind numb extremities—late in the summer season when the water level drops there are places to get wet. Bolder children jump off rocks near where the road dead-ends at the canyon wall, but we were content to float in the shallows.

Worth the Effort
This was my first experience as the only adult on a camping trip, and aside from being the only one able to carry the heavy stuff, it was a breeze. Most kids love to help . . . at least until someone at the next campsite calls over for a game of hide and seek.

Besides the obvious pleasures of getting away, breathing clean air and basking in natural beauty, there are more subtle benefits to camping. It deepens the feeling of connection not only to the earth, but also, curiously enough, to other people. When humans get out of doors, particularly in less accessible places, they get nicer for some reason. They smile, they help each other out . . . and they never ask you what you do for a living. Nobody out there really cares out what you “do,” so people connect from the heart.

Certainly the trees and the bears and the wind in the branches don’t care. In their home, all are welcome.

Sleepout Essentials
Camping equipment can be rented at A16, 11161 West Pico Blvd., West L.A., 310.473.4574 or 5425 Reseda Blvd., Tarzana 91356, 
818.345.4266.
Kings Canyon does not take campground reservations (except for groups). Fee is $14 per night per site. For general info, call 559.565.3341.

Photos courtesy Miguel Vieira

Share:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

StumbleUpon