Sequoia National Park – Day 2 (Moro Rock)

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Sequoia National Park

November 27

Hiking Moro Rock Trail and Hanging Rock in November

After a leisurely breakfast of bagels and coffee in our Wuksachi Lodge room we headed out around 9:30 a.m. We got to the busy Giant Forest Museum on Generals Highway in Sequoia Park around 10:00 a.m. This was a good starting central point for information and trailheads. We knew we wanted to hit the popular Moro Rock, but with road closures and snow-covered trails we wanted to check with park rangers for advice.

After speaking with Rangers for ideas, it was off to Moro Rock via a hiking trail that paralleled the closed road leading to it.  We hiked the Moro Rock trail right from the museum. It was a beautiful, clear day with temps around 45 degrees. The trail was covered in snow, but it was well packed, and so it was an easy hike. Most people walked the 1.5-mile road instead of the trail, so we saw only one other person on the trail. We also shared it with a very large deer…another benefit of not taking the paved road.

Before getting to Moro Rock, we detoured slightly to get to Hanging Rock.

It’s hard to believe that anybody hiking to Moro Rock would NOT venture the .1-mile to see the amazingly awesome canyon views from Hanging Rock. There was just one other person there. We had the panorama all to ourselves. The whole surface area sloped downward, and it was a deadly drop off about 5 yards beyond the hanging rock, so we stayed on this side of it. We also got a unique view of Moro Rock from Hanging Rock that others don’t see.

After about 15 minutes taking this all in, and not dying, we removed a layer of clothing before heading to Moro Rock. Three people arrived as we were leaving. We took pics of them for them, and moved on.

About 10 minutes up the way we landed at the base of the steps leading up to the famous granite dome of Moro Rock. Usually, this place would be very busy with people, but at this time of year we again had the place basically to ourselves.  This is a good thing, too.  The ¼ mile cut-stone staircase and walkway leading up and out to the point is quite narrow in spots, and there were some icy stretches.  There were definitely opportunities for death here!

This “hike” is a MUST for anybody who visits Sequoia National Park. The views and adventure of the trek alone are worth it, but the vista point at the pinnacle is stunning!! But I couldn’t imagine feeling comfortable out there with lots of people, so again, a good thing we did this in November.

Hiking to Tunnel Log

Once back down the 350 steps from Moro Rock, we hiked the Soldiers Trail about 1/2 mile to Tunnel Log. The hike was remarkable for the insanely large trees, but frankly, Tunnel Log was rather unremarkable. It’s one of those things that sounds cool, but once you see it, it’s a bit underwhelming. But it is a checklist item for the Park.

From Tunnel Log we hiked a non-descript 1.6-mile hike that in hindsight was part of the Soldiers Trail Loop.  We hit some cool sights as we hiked entirely in the snow back to the Giant Forest Museum. We chose this route because it was a bee-line trail that appeared on our AllTrails app.

Hiking Big Trees Trail

It turned out that we hiked part of the Alta Trail coming back, but near the end we got to a signed junction that led us to the Big Trees Trail. This is a very easy boardwalked nature trail encircling Round Meadow and lined with giant sequoias. It was a very nice walk, and perfect wind-down from the day’s hike.

Following this easy trail led us to a small area with a very large grouping of huge trees that was adjacent to, and across the road from the museum, where our car was parked.
In the end, we hiked a 6.2-mile loop including the walk up the Moro Rock stairway. At the car, we devoured our salami and cheese deli pack.  Neither of us anticipated being out and about for so long, and so we didn’t bring food with us. It was now about 2:30 p.m.

With the remaining daylight, we decided to complete the rest of Generals Highway. This southern stretch of Generals Highway was much more challenging than the section we had been on. It was more serpentine, and it provided many more opportunities for driving over the edge and landing in a large tree (with any luck).

Hospital Rock Pictoglyphs

Our first stop was Hospital Rock, which is notable for very cool ancient pictoglyphs. We parked in a fairly large picnic area across the road.  From the parking lot we got a view of Moro Rock, and Em pointed out where we had just been.

Even better than Hospital Rock itself was an adjacent, very short CCC trail down through a series of granite steps and overarching boulders to the Kaweah River. This was actually very beautiful. This was an unexpectedly great little stop.

From here, we drove to Tunnel Rock near the end of Generals Highway.  As with Tunnel Log, this was rather underwhelming.  It was actually undergoing some sort of construction.  Cars can no longer go through Tunnel Rock, so we go out and looked at it…meh.

Being near the southern entrance to the park we turned around here at about 4:15 p.m. to head back to the lodge for dinner, and a drink in the very small common area by the fire. I would imagine getting a seat in here in the summer is akin to scoring Taylor Swift tickets.

November 28

Hiking Tokopah Falls Trail in November

Excellent breakfast down in the main lodge. After checking out of the lodge at 10 a.m. we drove two miles to Lodgepole Campground to pick up the trailhead for the Tokopah Falls Trail. This is a 3.8-mile out and back trail along the Kaweah River to a 1,200’ cascading waterfall. We started out at 10:30 a.m. with only one other car in the very icy parking lot. It was a very cold morning.

This is listed as an easy family trail. But of course, that is in summer, not the end of November when the trail is covered in slick, packed snow. We followed the river the whole way, encountering some very slippery sections.  Emilie actually slid on her butt a few times instead of negotiating the slippery descents.  This was the hike where we really could have used spikes…or a sled.

When at the end, we found the falls to be only partially falling as most of it was frozen. But the horseshoe surroundings of majestically towering rock at the falls were really quite beautiful, as was the constant presence of the towering rock hovering over us throughout the latter part of the hike. This was a totally worthwhile final hike in the park. It was also very nice to hike this all to ourselves…we saw 5 other people.

On the way back, we stopped at some large flat rocks in the sun along a rapid section of the river and sat for a few minutes.  Lying in the sun near the end of this challenging hike was just the thing! The hike took us 3 hours to complete!

At the car we ate leftover pizza from the night before as we began our 4-hour drive to Yosemite Valley Lodge.

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