Immense mountains, deep canyons, and huge trees
Cycling Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
August 20-21 2005
60 photos and movies (
) by Steven Hill and Rebecca Heald, steephill.tv
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This past weekend, Rebecca and I participated in a really nice, informal, two-day bicycle tour through the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. These parks protect some of the most stunning habitats you'll find anywhere. The huge elevational range (1,500' to 14,491') in this region features immense mountains including Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states; huge trees including the General Sherman Sequoia Tree, the largest (by volume) living thing on earth and deep canyons including Kings Canyon which is deeper than the more famous Grand Canyon in Arizona.We drove down to Visalia, just southeast of Fresno, late Friday afternoon and arrived at Catharina Berge's house around 11:00 PM. Cat and Bill Zigler are the organizers of this informal tour known as Tour to Cedar Grove, now in it's 4th year. Cat invited the out-of-towners to stay at her place before setting out very early the next morning. If you don't already know, Cat just recently had a very successful Race-Across-America where she placed 8th overall out of 26 starters and was the first female finisher since 2001. Bill provided SAG during the two days of the Cedar Grove tour and did an excellent job. He said he brought a book and chair just in case he got bored but he never had more than five minutes of inactivity. His support during the hot, difficult two days of cycling was appreciated by everyone and might have been too good, in fact, because our 13 person tour globbled up two day's worth of Paul Mckenzie's Clif Bar swag in a single day. Paul brought some new stuff that's part of the ever expanding Clif Bar product line including Clif Shot Bloks which are like jube-fruits and can replace the messy energy gels that end up everywhere but down your throat. And these even taste better. He also brought some unmarked fruity mini-bars which didn't taste very good. I didn't ask him but they were probably the rejects from R&D.
Kings Canyon PanoramaDay 1: Exeter to Cedar Grove - 106 miles; 12,000 ft climbing
Over 2,000,000 people per year visit Kings Canyon and Sequoia parks, so while riding up Generals Highway on a Saturday morning in mid-August we shared the switchbacks with a lot of vehicles. However, most of the vehicles only go as far as Grant Grove to visit the Giant Sequoias making our spectacular descent into Kings Canyon very quiet in comparison to the first half the of ride. I had no idea what Kings Canyon was like so when Paul said "Let's put this puppy in the books" at the Grant Grove rest stop, I thought we'd hammer it the remaining 20+ miles and arrive at camp in no time, but it didn't turn out that way. The Kings Canyon Scenic Byway is beyond description and photos. It weaves it's way down the deepest canyon in North America on good pavement. With the late day sun at our backs casting definition on the granite peaks and the vivid blue sky outlining the tips, the photography conditions were superb. Rebecca and I hung back and took our sweet time descending while taking about 100 pictures along the way. Unfortunately, near the end, Rebecca was getting hungry and her artistic interest was waning as I yelled movie director instructions from 50 feet up the road. So I grabbed a Clif Shot Bloks package from my jersey and zinged it a good distance down the road. I could probably chuck one of those things a 100 feet because the weight and design is just perfect for hurling a good distance. That kept the production rolling. Our ride time that day was around 7 hours but with all our stops we were on the road for over 11 hours! We were the last ones to arrive at the Sentinel campground at Cedar Grove. Luckily, all we had to do that evening was pitch our tent and bathe in the river before we were served a great dinner with vast quantities of everything a cyclist needs after a long day on the road.
The canyons of the Kings River are actually the deepest canyons in North America, deeper even than Grand Canyon, although they lack some of the spectacular topography of that area. From the bottom of the canyon to the top is 8000 feet in places. Scroll right >> to view the complete panorama.
Day 2: Cedar Grove to Exeter - 75 miles, 5,000 ft climbing
The next morning, it was pay back time for the long, winding descent into the canyon we enjoyed the previous day. After a 10 mile warm-up descent to Boyden Cave Bridge we started the 17 mile climb out of the canyon back up to the Grant Grove Visitor's Center where everyone regrouped. It was another chance to take in the incredible scenery especially since the climb never gets too steep. After that, it was all pretty much downhill until we hit the flats near Exeter again. We took CA-180 out of the park instead of retracing Generals Highway and then descended some really quiet twisty back roads in furnace-like conditions. Along one of these back roads I flatted. A big thanks goes out to Fresno Dale for stopping to lend me his better top-tube pump. -- Steve, August 24 2005
A brief comment from Bill Zigler on the history and future plans of this tour
Regarding the Tour's inception, several local riders had wanted to organize an overnight trip to the Cedar Grove area of Kings Canyon. Many had done a ride called, the "Tour of Two Parks," which took them from Visalia to Three Rivers to Sequoia National Park. The ride continued through Sequoia National Park and Sequoia National Forest, finally entering Kings Canyon National Park. At that point the ride descended highway 180, highway 245 and finally returned to Visalia for around 130 miles with some serious elevation gain.
While this was a picturesque and challenging one day ride, it barely grazed Kings Canyon National Park and did not enter the actual Kings Canyon at all. The group decided that the addition of Kings Canyon would legitimately complete the "Tour of Two Parks" and chose to focus on the Cedar Grove component of the ride to avoid confusion for local riders. Finally we scoped out required logistics and established a campsite and prepositioned food for the evening meal. In the early days we rode the ride unsupported, and carried extra water for the drier sections. During the last two years we have enlisted SAG support, which we hope keeps the riders fresher and makes the ride more enjoyable.
Future plans? We'd like to continue the event during mid-to-late August with more volunteer support. We believe that about 25 is the maximum number of riders we'd like to support in the park (plus by keeping the number low, we feel we can maintain a good, long-term working relationship with Park officials).
For information on participating in the 2006 Tour to Cedar Grove, email Bill Zigler or check out the Southern Sierra Cyclists website closer to the event date.
2005 Tour to Cedar Grove Riders
| Gordie Miller | Jane Johnson | Dale Johnson | Dale Handley |
| Jessie Luna | Paul McKenzie | Janet Dehaven | Nancy Farzan |
| Mike Camarena | Chris Kostman | Rebecca Heald | Steven Hill |
| Catharina Berge | Bill Zigler |
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