In just a few hours the sun came up and I had a full day to explore the park, this time in the sunlight. Making my way through the curves in the road I found myself recognizing a few spots along the road, but most of it looked completely different in the daylight.  I think it’s always good to explore the same place in different times of day, or in a different direction, you’ll see so many new things.

With this in mind I decided to revisit the General Sherman tree. I made my down the path, being careful to keep my distance from everyone else on the busy trail. Although I was able to get a better sense of the tree’s immense size I didn’t get the same feeling when I had the tree all to myself. It felt like the tree had been turned into a celebrity; people would take their obligatory photos with it and be on their way. I found myself guilty of this, I walked to a less busy side of the tree took a few pictures and moved on.

I made my way onto another trail, but didn’t manage to stay on it for very long. I saw one tree that lead me to another and another after that until I found a group standing separate in a clearing. Tall trees are hard to photograph (at least for me), so it took me a while to find an angle that I liked. It’s also hard to accurately portray the perspective. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what I didn’t like about all the previous angles, but ultimately I found one that I didn’t hate. Maybe I’m just hard on myself, but that seems to be the case more often than not. 

Turns out I spent a few hours with those trees; it’s hard to keep track of time when you’re not worried about it passing. When I figured out what time it was I realized that I probably wouldn’t have time to do a longer hike like I had planned, (it didn’t help that I hit a road closure that set me back an hour) so I spent the rest of the day scouting places for sunset. There were a lot of things I was looking for in a good sunset spot. At some point along my search I crossed from Sequoia into King’s Canyon National Park. This spot in King’s had a good view but I wasn’t facing the direction I wanted…

So I kept driving…

The spot ended up being just another turnoff on the side of the road. I backed my car up to the edge so I could watch what my camera was watching. After my camera was set I just let it go and took the time to slow down and enjoy the sunset myself.  I ate some dinner, drank a beer, played some music and just watched day turn to night.