Day 1: July 1, Sat - Sunnyvale To Sequoia

What : Camping trip to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park

When : July 1 (Sat) to July 3 (Mon)

Who Went : The Visual Suspects (Pictures below)

Veena, Vaishu, Prasanna (referred to as VVP henceforth)
Triveni, Surya, Shivanna (referred to as TSS henceforth)
Shruthi, Venkatesh (referred to as SV henceforth)

What did they drive : VVP in their minivan. SV & TSS in SV's SUV

(Shruthi, Venkatesh)

(Triveni, Shivanna) (Surya missing in this photo)

(Prasanna, Vaishu, Veena)

Sequoia National Park(SNP) is about 240 miles from Sunnyvale and the estimated drive time is 5 hrs. SNP is southeast of Sunnyvale and directly below Yosemite. VVP left at 11:45am and the others left at 2:45pm. The route was: 101 South, 152 East, 99 South, 180 East

When we left at 2:45pm, VVP informed us that 152 was congested and we considered alternate routes (156 East to 152 East). But when we got to 152 East, traffic had cleared and we made good time. We took a break in Fresno to fill gas. Other than that we didn't need any other breaks since we left just after lunch. We reached the LodgePole campground at 8pm and there was still some sunlight left. VVP had reached 5 minutes before us and they were unloading when we got there.

Our campsite was nice and very private. It was very close to the marble fork of Kaweah River. We could see the river from our site and we could definitely hear the buzz of flowing water. We quickly pitched our three tents and started cooking dinner.

(Our tents: Blue, Green and Red)

We were all quite hungry by then and Tomato Soup was quickly prepared. It was very yummy!
Main course was Uppit and it was very tasty. VVP had got Lemon Cake for dessert which was also devoured along with Uppit. It was already dark when we started cooking and by this time, we had a fire going and we actually ate dinner sitting around the fire. Since it was dark, we couldn't go around collecting firewood. So we had to make do with what little we had. Even though we were at an altitude of 6000ft, surprisingly it was not very cold. We were in our t-shirts and shorts late into the night. We sat around the fire and enjoyed the warmth nevertheless :-)

If you have camped in Bear Country, you'll know that all food needs to go into the bear can at night. The park ranger had pretty much asked us to putty everything we had into the bear can. We even put water bottles in the bear can. I'm glad he didn't ask to lock ourselves up in there too! ;-)