The beginning of the end of the California adventure

I'm in the works of moving back to Canada - I've resigned from my job, but sort of staying on in a part-time capacity for the month of February to train up my replacement and wrap-up some loose ends. Last week was my first "part-time" week, and I spent most of it on a camping trip.

One of the "loose ends" I'm wrapping up is hitting up as many national parks as I can while still on the west coast. Over the weekend Mary, Mai and Nimali and I went to Joshua Tree, hitting up Vasquez Rocks on the way. Here we are being Trekkies at Vasquez:

 

On to Joshua Tree. The desert is a funny place. I think, if I'm looking for solitude in nature, I still prefer a good, Canadian canoe trip. No people, lots of space, lots of water, you can stay out in the wilderness almost indefinitely. The desert has this water limitation, same as Australia. You have to carry everything you need with you, and if you run out of water you're screwed. Also, different people want different things out of their desert experience. On one hand you have people who want to be alone in this crazy, vast, barren landscape, that's beautiful and also has crazy plants and animals. On the other, you have the Burning Man variety: the people camping across from us had dance music blasting out of their minivan at 8am in the morning on our last day there. I had a little bit of a dance to myself, and I can enjoy both varieties of desert experience, but it was just a bit odd.
 

 

Mai and I drove Mary and Nimali to North Hollywood, had some excellent Lebanese food, and then they caught the bus back to San Jose and work, and Mai and I took off for Sequoia & Kings Canyon. We arrived around sunset on Monday evening, and had our choice of every single site at Azalea Campground. Tuesday did some easier hikes with good views and big trees. Wednesday did an epic hike up a mountain - Alta Peak. 13 miles, and the view just kept getting better and better the whole way. Amazing views:

At the peak we ate lunch, and found a metal lunch box stashed in a weathered-out hole in a rock. It was full of notebooks signed by people who had made it to the top. We added our names to the list and hiked back down.

I'd like to go back to Kings Canyon and Sequoia. We didn't do the touristy things of checking out the General Sherman tree, since our priority lay more in hiking. There was a hike called "The Watchtower" I think it was, that sounded crazy and epic and was closed due to weather, so I'd like to go back in summer and try it out.

And that's the news for now!