Sequoia Camping Trip 2017
August 23 - August 25, 2017
Daniel invited Christiana, me, and his best friend, Frank, to go camping for two nights and three days in Sequoia.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
We dropped Dena off at Union Station at 5:30 in the morning, and slept from 6:30 to 7:30, until Daniel and Frank arrived at Christiana’s (an hour later than planned due to traffic D:). After hours of driving, we first stopped by the General Sherman Tree (the largest tree in the world :O) and took some pictures (the tree was so big, we had to take the pic using the panorama mode but up and down and not left to right lol).
Then, we finally arrived at Lodgepole in Sequoia. While we were unpacking, we noticed some thundering sounds and gray clouds above the mountain to the right of us… And less than an hour later, when we were seated around the not-yet-lit campfire, we noticed the clouds drawing nearer and nearer. Then, Daniel screamed as he felt the first drop, which made us get up and start shoving everything inside our tent, bear box, and car. So we spent the next hour and a half of rain in our tent resting, and playing Bananagrams and Monopoly Deal. It was actually a pretty nice experience listening to the rain fall on our tent hehe.
Once the rain stopped, we went outside to prep our gogi partyyy (samgyupsal and chadol). We were actually supposed to have the gogi party on our last night at Sequoia, but we realized the meat would spoil unless we get a bunch of ice for the entire day while we were out hiking the next day. So good thing Daniel and Frank thought about that. :) So the guys ended up cooking the meat and serving us hoho. That was very nice of them. :)
After dinner, we ended our night with some campfire time, making s'mores and conversations. Christiana even made a molarmellow #직업병 HAHA
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Christiana and I woke up to a campfire and a breakfast already prepared by the guys, who woke up an hour in advance (thank you!!). Then, we got ready to go hiking! We found a parking spot super easily and started the hike up the Hump Trail.
Omg. This trail was hard af. It took us three hours just to go up. And on the way, the guys (who know their way around here) kept saying, “We’re almost there!” Turns out, we were "almost there" TWO hours later ! -o- lol
But wow I’ve never seen this much plants in one place. It was so beautifulll.
This pic was taken on the way down, but it was so shady because there were so many tall trees.
We took many many needed breaks on the way up because it was exhausting. Thankfully, I didn’t feel like I was going to faint (how I usually feel when I go hiking). BUT I was very very tired (heart racing and out of breath).
But the view once we got there was amazing. The pictures don’t do justice, but man… It was so so so pretty.
After taking the beauty in and lots and lots of pictures, we made our way down towards the lake.
Here, we (the guys lol) put the fishing gear together to try to catch some fish! Sadly, my fishing line kept getting tangled, and at the end of the day, Christiana and I did not catch one fish… D: Daniel and Frank, on the other hand, caught a whole bunch… no fair… We didn’t eat the fish we caught or anything though. The guys just released them back into the water. One of the fish that Frank tried to release actually turned into a sad story:
So he caught a fish and then removed the hook to throw it back into the lake. So he chucked it towards the water, and then BAM! it slams into a huge boulder and lands in the dirt… So by this time, we were all O.O / :O, and Frank makes his way down to the dirt where the fish landed, picks it back up, and actually throws it into the water this time. And then… the poor thing just floated back up to the surface… T.T So sad. :(
So yeah… After some fishing, we made chicken sandwiches and PB&J for lunch and then tried to fish some more.
Then, around 3:30, we headed down the mountain after taking this picture.
We took the Watchtower Trail going down because Daniel and Frank knew that this trail had a crazy view (like going down, there was a crazy view). A good chunk of the top half of the mountain, we were walking on a ledge. O.O
This was preeeetty thrilling. hoho
Poor Christiana and Daniel were getting pretty nervous. ><
So while going down this scary part of the mountain, we came across this cliff-looking thing that one of Daniel and Frank’s friend supposedly climbed up.
So Frank wanted to try it himself too, and I decided to follow because when will I ever climb up to the end of a cliff, you know? But Daniel and Christiana decided to stay behind and take pictures of us once we reach the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately, the thing was impossible to climb up because the path was extremely narrow and too risky try to go passed that tree sticking up in the middle of the ledge. So we just sat as close to the cliff thing as possible and snapped a pic there. haha
So the place Frank and I were sitting on was actually not too scary because it was wide and had places for us to sit. So Daniel and Christiana joined us! :D Look at us livin’ life on the edge. hehe
After spending a lot of time taking pictures going down the mountain, we continued our way back down the mountain, through the foresty part again. This time, I think we only took two to three breaks because it was so much easier going down. But towards the end, we were very very tired for we had a looong day… When we had around thirty minutes left, Daniel shouted, “Car!” as in, “We’re almost there because I see the parking lot!” But when we approached it, it turned out to be a huge white boulder…! L O L. It was so sad but so funny haha. So eventually, we reached the bottom of the mountain two and a half hours after we left the lake (so this includes our two breaks and the many many picture breaks we took lol).
For dinner, we each had two hot dogs: one pineapple sausage and one spicy sausage. We even added grilled onions and garlic from the gogi party. It was a good thing we had the gogi party the night before because we were super tired. The hot dogs were so much simpler to make and eat haha.
And the rest of the night was just cleaning up and more eating. We had the campfire going again, and we ate some corn, goguma, and s’mores.
Friday, August 25, 2017
The next morning, I got up at 6:30 because it was cold + I was uncomfortable sleeping on the ground + I was paranoid about leaking since my time of the freaking month started Wednesday night in Sequoia -_-. So I washed up and everything and just waited on the bench outside because I didn’t want to wake the guys up since they were sleeping towards the side of the door. Then around 8:30, I hear the tent zipper unzip, followed by a loudass fart. Of course, it’s Daniel, who has been ripping farts with no shame the entire trip lmao. So he started a fire as soon as he woke up, and the first thing I ate that morning was a giant marshmallowwww hoho.
So once everyone woke up, we ate the leftovers for breakfast and packed the car. We then walked over to a lake across the street from our campsite. That was pretty niceee.
By the time it was time for us to check out, we finished up our games of horseshoe and made sure everything was in the car.
On the way down, we stopped by Moro Rock and some more giant trees.
Turns out this Moro “Rock” was a 20-minute climb up. -_- lol Man… my legs were burning…
They should seriously rename it as Moro Mountain… This is a pic I took of Moro “Rock” on the way home:
But in the end, the view was amazinggg haha
After we made our way back down from Moro “Rock,” we visited some more giant trees.
A giant fallen tree:
The side of the giant fallen tree:
The bottom side of the giant fallen tree:
In front of a giant, mushy tree:
And thennnn we made our way back to LA with just one stop and concluded our trip with BCD.
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Twas a very very fun and exciting camping trip! Although I was disappointed that I didn’t see any bears or catch any fish, it was exciting since there was a lot of firsts for me - first time camping (not glamping lol), first time learning how to cast a fishing rod, first time playing horseshoe, first time hiking for three hours and not feeling like fainting, and first time seeing and admiring the beauty of nature (trees, mountains, sky FULL of stars, sight and sound of lakes/streams), I never realized how much I loved the beauty of nature. I always thought trees were trees and mountains were mountains, but mannn. Nature is so beautiful! lol
Thanks Daniel for planning and inviting me to this awesome camping trip to Sequoiaaaa.