sequoia

those big trees never cease to amaze. every time chris and i see them it elicits a string of unfinished thoughts "that's just.....bonkers" & "wow" seem to be the extent of our combined vocabulary. we "hiked" by which i mean we followed some paved paths and short trails to see the wonders of "tunnel log", the one you drive though if the road was open (many of the roads were closed due to the snow that remains still into may... "auto log" the fallen one you used to could drive on, but we walked on...the old saloon one, the largest tree in the world (the sherman- which weighs about 2.7 million lbs....truly never seen something to that proportions, the largest branches were the size of very large trees!) i attempted to get on top a fallen one by walking up the snow piled around it. to my great surprise as i nearly had set my front foot atop the tree that foot fell trough the snow and i was plopped onto my backside (in the cold cold snow) with one leg danging under the snow. even n its side the fall off is nothing to laugh at, i'd guess 6-8 feet up. i made it out ok and had quite a laugh at myself. we also climbed to the top of moro rock (should have some pics soon, wiki may give you some idea of it) it's peaked out at 6.725' and the stairs to the top can be quite steep and the drops off the sides really made my mild fear of heights act up. i did great until the halfway point when the views got more intense and the stairs narrower. with chris's constant encouragement i made it to the top, but only to the bench, not the farthest viewpoint. too much... there were some birds that were flying around that would whiz by with such speed at times a foot from your head. the walk down was a blur of railing and my own feet on the steps.
that evening i took part on my first night shoot -- two lights powered by a small generator a couple fancy cameras and the dark forest all around you the only thing lit was the fallen sequoia roots we shot. i have to say i am indeed scared of the dark. it didn't help that bears had been in that area earlier, but we made it out better than ever. after the chilly weather (i had on 5 layers for the night shot) death valley's heat will be welcome. i hope.