This really was an adventure, and I am so grateful to all of the people we met who helped us out along the way; we were very lucky to have met you all.
We left Fresno intending to get to a campsite for night, and this plan went badly wrong when we realised we had been cycling in the wrong direction for about an hour - I know, how stupid can you get?! We found ourselves on a newly built road with invisible debris on the hard shoulder, no street lights, in the dark, and still many miles from the intended campsite, so decided to try to wild camp for the night. This plan went badly wrong when we met an irate farmer with a pack of ravenous dogs, a large flash light and a gun. We ended up in a motel for the night. Our second day of trying to get to Sequoia started off well with fresh fruit from a stand for breakfast and cycling past miles and miles of orchards which are planted so accurately that the straight lines remind me of maths problems. However the day soon began to heat up, and quite soon the terrain looked like this:
Then our first incline began and I started to wonder where the line between being too hot, and being dangerously at risk of heat stroke started. There was no shade in sight, it was only going to get hotter, and there was no where to stop. Ooops. I stopped to catch my breath and felt faintly sick - this was not a good sign. Perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew....
Then we were rescued, and I have never been more in need of rescuing. Bob, a fellow cyclist, but luckily this time in a truck, picked us up. He drove us to his very very beautiful farm, gave us drinks, invited us to stay the night, and for a delicious home made dinner, home made baked breakfast (thank you, Ginger,) hot showers, and then gave us a ride all the way up to the top of the mountain and to the entrance of the National Park.
We stayed in a campsite in Grant Grove and cycled to see the world's third largest tree, which was incredible. These sequoia trees are different from the ones on the coast, they are a bit fatter and a bit shorter, although what seemed to me to be more noticeable was that these trees had sturdy, gnarled branches at the top reminiscent of an oak tree. Individually they were so impressive, on the whole I enjoyed the trees on the coast more as there were simply so many of them, and walking through forests of them was almost otherworldly.
From Grant Grove we cycled to Lodgepole, which has to be one of the best rides I have ever done. The road mostly follows a ridgeway although there is still over a 300 metres (1000 feet) of ascent involved. The views are just amazing. I did find it very hard going though as the altitude is so high, we were at about 1800 metres (6000 feet), and I was in my lowest gear almost the whole way, during one ascent my feet went numb, and the tips of my fingers lost feeling as well. I realised at this point that I might not have managed the ascent all the way up on my bike, due to the lack of oxygen as well as the heat, and was doubly grateful to Bob for the ride.
We left Fresno intending to get to a campsite for night, and this plan went badly wrong when we realised we had been cycling in the wrong direction for about an hour - I know, how stupid can you get?! We found ourselves on a newly built road with invisible debris on the hard shoulder, no street lights, in the dark, and still many miles from the intended campsite, so decided to try to wild camp for the night. This plan went badly wrong when we met an irate farmer with a pack of ravenous dogs, a large flash light and a gun. We ended up in a motel for the night. Our second day of trying to get to Sequoia started off well with fresh fruit from a stand for breakfast and cycling past miles and miles of orchards which are planted so accurately that the straight lines remind me of maths problems. However the day soon began to heat up, and quite soon the terrain looked like this:
Then we were rescued, and I have never been more in need of rescuing. Bob, a fellow cyclist, but luckily this time in a truck, picked us up. He drove us to his very very beautiful farm, gave us drinks, invited us to stay the night, and for a delicious home made dinner, home made baked breakfast (thank you, Ginger,) hot showers, and then gave us a ride all the way up to the top of the mountain and to the entrance of the National Park.
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| Our rescuers Bob and Ginger |
We stayed in a campsite in Grant Grove and cycled to see the world's third largest tree, which was incredible. These sequoia trees are different from the ones on the coast, they are a bit fatter and a bit shorter, although what seemed to me to be more noticeable was that these trees had sturdy, gnarled branches at the top reminiscent of an oak tree. Individually they were so impressive, on the whole I enjoyed the trees on the coast more as there were simply so many of them, and walking through forests of them was almost otherworldly.
From Grant Grove we cycled to Lodgepole, which has to be one of the best rides I have ever done. The road mostly follows a ridgeway although there is still over a 300 metres (1000 feet) of ascent involved. The views are just amazing. I did find it very hard going though as the altitude is so high, we were at about 1800 metres (6000 feet), and I was in my lowest gear almost the whole way, during one ascent my feet went numb, and the tips of my fingers lost feeling as well. I realised at this point that I might not have managed the ascent all the way up on my bike, due to the lack of oxygen as well as the heat, and was doubly grateful to Bob for the ride.
From Lodgepole we intended to spend a day hiking and seeing the world's biggest tree; this was not to be however as the weather forecast got worse and worse. When we got up the next morning we were in the middle of a cloud, and the visitors' centre' was predicting a 100% chance of snow for the following day and temperatures of -8'C for the night. We left and started heading for the largest tree and realised that it was totally mad so turned around and cycled through thick freezing cold cloud all the way back to Grant Grove. At Grant Grove temperatures were predicted to be slightly warmer, thank goodness and we enjoyed a meal in the disappointingly under-heated restaurant before bed. It rained all night, and I mean rained! In the morning my tent had leaked and had water all across the floor, I looked outside to see that where we had been camped on a dry level campsite the night before was suddenly the convergence of two fast flowing and full streams. I thought it was time to cycle out as quickly as possible and get to the valley below. Christof felt that cycling in the rain was mad and so we moved my tent to a small dryish patch under a tree and dried it out as well as possible. Two hours later the rain had not eased for a second, when suddenly a new noise was heard - snow!
This time we packed up as fast as we could and fled the campsite, the mountain, and it seemed the weather, - we had a glorious hour and a half of clear weather which saw us zooming down 1500 metres (5000 feet) to the bottom of the mountain. What an amazing descent, and when we got lower the views were super, the plain which Fresno is built on has to be the biggest flattest piece of land I have ever seen, and I don't just mean flat, it is ironed, it is paper flat, and stretches much further than the eye can see.
The next few days were a bit of a problem, there is no camping to be had anywhere near Fresno it appears, and although we had a warm shower host lined up to take us in the Saturday night we had two nights with no where to stay. Jeff stepped in, and very kindly after meeting us outside a Little Caesars (I know, I am sorry, I was STARVING, and it smelt foody) he offered us a place to stay for two nights, and, when we arrived it was luxury, rather than tents in the garden we had rooms, beds, a kitchen to cook in, and good company too. I am so lucky to have met so many so nice people, and Jeff and Myra were some of the very best, they looked after us and welcomed us with open arms.
Finally our last two hosts, Sid and Martha, whom we approached via Warm Showers, (a website for touring cyclists in case you are wondering) were also totally super and made life much easier, especially with boxing my bike and assisting with transport to Fresno airport for my flight to Charlotte, North Carolina. Thank you both so much, and I hope you get some travelling soon!
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