Tunnel Log, Moro Rock, and BEARS

Day two of our California adventure among the giant Sequioa trees did not disappoint! If you need a recap of day one be sure to check out the last blog post.

We drove back up the mountain, and had to stop for motion sickness. While stopped, this was the epic view we had. Can you find Nick and the boys in the photo?

After the pitstops day two started off with going to Tunnel Log. On the way there we found Auto Log. While you can't drive on the auto log, you can still climb and walk all over it.

While I throughly expected a long line to wait to take this picture at Tunnel Log, there were only two to three other cars there. We took turns taking each other's photos. At one point it felt like we had this entire place to ourselves, too! It was definitely worth coming here first thing in the morning for us.

Next up and on the same road was going to Moro Rock. Now, thankfully we got there early and only had to wait a few minutes for a parking lot. There is very little parking here, but they DO have a shuttle that would make parking less of a frustrating issue. I would strongly recommend looking at that for later in the day. This trail was short but a climb, and worth it for the views! Just out of sight was Mount Whitney.

I am SO thankful that we did this when we did. Starting on this day there were prescribed burns in the area, and views would have been very different the next day from here.

By this time, we were hungry, so we drove back up back the road to a Parker Group, a small grove, to have a picnic. This by far my be the most epic picnic spot I'll ever remember. After eating, there were near by fallen trees that we explored. It is just mind blowing how massive these trees are.

After our bellies and moods were better, we headed over to see Tharp's Log Cabin along the Crescent Meadow Trail. This was right up next to the prescribed burn area, but there were plenty of signs and people that it was still safe for us to go on the trail. Almost immediately we were informed of bear activity ahead, and rangers marking the area to help keep guests safe. We headed that direction and were greeted with a mama bear and her cub (a safe distance, of course!)

It was so cool to see them! The rangers did a great job keeping their path clear and letting us know when it was okay to watch or when we just needed to keep moving. After viewing them, we continued the trail.

At this point we came to the part in the trail that was roped off due to the burn. We could see the fire fighters and some of the burn yet I forgot to take the photo! We headed back, and saw another different black bear.

And finally we saw the mama and baby resting again by the front of the trail.

We went back down the mountain with another spout of motion sickness. We rested, cooked dinner, went out for dessert at Three Rivers Yogurt, and then watched the sunset at one of the lakes.

The dessert place had the most amazing little back patio area overlooking the river! For the lake, since it was just at a spot on the side of the road, it had a lot more trash. PLEASE leave no trace! besides that, the boys enjoyed watching the many prairie dog like animals.

We had one more final day in Three Rivers, so come back to see what we explored in the Kings Canyon side next time! You can check out the video from this trip below: