On Trail Guy’s birthday, we went to Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park, which is as far as people are allowed to go right now. It has been about 2-1/2 weeks since the last storm, but the road isn’t cleared because the equipment is broken and there aren’t enough operators or mechanics. At least that’s what they say. When Trail Guy was Road Guy, there were no excuses—the road was kept open, no matter what. Period. No time-off. Sigh.
Fretting over the present is not why we are here today. We are here because there are sights to see, such as this ugly burned area.
Moro Rock as seen from Hospital Rock; steps go up the side you cannot see from here. Advertisement: I have a pencil drawing of this, available as a reproduction. Might even still have the original buried deep in a file.
This elderberry shrub survived the fire.
Castle Rocks: if you look across the middle fork of the Kaweah River from atop Moro Rock, you will see these distinctive rocks. Or you can skip the climb and take the Moro Creek Road to see them, as we did, especially when the Park is mostly unavailable. 
California bay laurel trees make bay leaves, the kind used in cooking.
We walked up the Moro Creek Road, which takes you to the Middle Fork Trailhead.
I love me some green.
That footbridge down there is called the Buckeye bridge because you get to it through the Buckeye campground. A long time ago, Trail Guy was part of the crew who rebuilt the bridge. A big flood took it out the following winter and it had to be rebuilt yet again. (He wasn’t part of that rebuild.)
Alta Peak’s elephant is at a more oblique angle than the way we see it from Three Rivers.
The green arrow points toward Alta Peak; the blue oval is around Triple Divide Peak (separating 3 drainages: Kings to the left/north, Kaweah to the west/toward us, Kern to the right/south); the red oval is around Mt. Stewart.
Heading back, looking down toward the valley.
In addition to loving green, I love me a good stone wall.
And thus we conclude our birthday walk of 3.3 miles in the foothills of Sequoia National Park, just above the little town of Three Rivers, in Tulare County, California’s flyover country.
Sincerely,
Your Central California artist who takes walks instead of painting or drawing these days but plans on getting back to work eventually.
3 Comments
“When Trail Guy was Road Guy, there were no excuses—the road was kept open, no matter what. Period. No time-off. Sigh.” Apparently, broken equipment and lack of workers is the New Normal now. “Sigh” indeed!
OTOH, “Spring Green” was one of my favorite colors in the 64 Crayola Crayon box, so let’s focus on that!
It looks like you had a lovely walk, and happy belated birthday to T.G.!
Sharon, for some mysterious tech reason, this comment only appeared in the “Trash” file this morning. Good Grief Charlie Brown.
Wow, should I feel paranoid or something? I wonder what set off the auto-reject. Maybe WP doesn’t like the color green? Makes as much sense as any other explanation!
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