Sequoia -- from the Eyes of a 10 Year Old

An essay by Marilyn Stitt


It was July of 1954 and my family had just arrived in Southern California from a small town in upstate New York. I was not very happy, having left all my friends back home. My Aunt Bea and Uncle Howie had moved out West earlier and were already settled. They announced that they would take my brother and me to Sequoia, a place I had never heard of and didn't particularly want to see. I think the trip was designed to take our mind off of leaving the only home we had known. Besides Uncle Howie said it was just a short trip from Newport Beach. I learned not to believe everything he said.

Anyway, we hopped into the '47 Chevy early, really early, in the morning. A few hours later we were climbing into some mountains. I asked, "Is this Sequoia?" If so I was not overly impressed. Uncle Howie said, "No, this is the Grapevine." We ate breakfast at a place on the Grapevine called Castaic, which seemed to be the only settlement in what I thought was the Grapevine Mts. Finally this two lane road overlooked a huge valley below.
 
After traveling from Bakersfield to Porterville and beyond, I was getting car sick from this "short" trip from Newport Beach. Then my uncle announced, "I know a short cut to Sequoia from here." Wrong. We got hopelessly lost on a logging road. We finally had to turn around on this narrow dirt road. I hid in the back seat. If a logging truck had been coming down the road, I don't think I would be telling this story today. Well, we finally reached our destination in the dark. That short trip only took about 15 hours.

We pitched our pup tent for Aunt Bea and me while Uncle Howie and my brother slept in sleeping bags outside the tent. In the morning I got my first look at that place called Sequoia. There were so many trees and some of them were really huge. I was in awe at these magnificent monstrous trees. I learned they were the famous Giant Sequoia trees. And they were giants.

We had set up camp near a place called Beetle Rock. It was a huge expanse of rock. We spent a long time sitting on the rock and taking in a wonderful view of the forest. That view was only surpassed by the one we saw after climbing up Morro Rock. I was glad we made the trip. That was such an awesome place. Then Uncle Howie said we were going on a short hike to Heather Lake. Never believe your uncle.
 
Uncle Howie didn't tell us it was a difficult 8 mile hike to the lake. He kept telling us that there was an ice cream stand at Heather Lake. Wrong. But that kept us going for a while. We continued to fill our canteens with water from streams along the trail. In some places the trail was along a ledge which was scary. When my 10 year old legs didn't seem like they could walk any further, my uncle had a suggestion. "You can sit here on a rock and we'll pick you up on the way back. Oh, and by the way, if a bear comes by, don't talk to it." I kept hiking. When we finally reached Heather Lake, it really was beautiful. We ate lunch and spent quite some time simply enjoying the splendor of that setting. The hike back was more downhill and not so bad.

Another memory I have of Sequoia was of the bears. Bears and their cubs were numerous. People would put food on stumps and the bears would come by to eat it. When someone left food on a picnic table, a bear was right there to gobble it up. One bear opened a locked ice chest and helped itself to a meal of jam from a jar it also opened. In the evening people would drive to the dump to watch the bears looking for people food. (I was glad to find out in later years that the interaction between people and bears had changed for the better.)

Sequoia turned out to a place more amazing than I could have imagined. There was nothing in upstate New York or in Newport Beach, California to compare to that park. To this day I can visualize those awesome Sequoia trees. "Uncle Howie, I'm glad you took us on that 'short' trip. It was well worth it."