Can trees be interesting enough to spend an entire precious day on them in the USA? "Depends on which ones, but generally — no," you'll say. That's what we said too as we drove up to Sequoia National Park. It turns out they can, if you do everything according to an old Native American–Spanish–Russian recipe)

The recipe was traded to us by a certain mage (a guard by trade), who protected the local sacred spirits from the corrupting influence of civilization.)

We take:

-high mountains — about 20–25

-a winding road with the best views, climbing high-high and leading far-far — 1, with bonus branches

-forest trails — about 8–10

-the clearest and warmest mountain rivers with waterfalls — about 3 (oh, there are more waterfalls)

-the world's biggest trees — many of them, all labeled

-the biggest tree in the world — 1, also the most signposted)

-California weather — 1

Thoroughly mix over an area no larger than an hour's drive, season with sun, sea breeze, the smell and noise of the most coniferous forest on earth, pile on Indian myths, giant cones and places where the golden fever virus reproduced, and serve wrapped in the beautiful package of Sequoia National Park.

The first thing we saw when we drove in was an awesome little river on the right side of the road. It was called Death River, but in reality it was livelier than life itself.) Pulling over to the shoulder, we got out. The river flowed below in a small valley, so you had to go down about 5–7 meters.

And now the picture — you are on the biggest rock among the many scattered here, right below you is the place where sparkling water gathers before falling from a small waterfall. The pool is fairly deep, but so clear it takes your breath away! And it's very hot.

Question: what will you do?

WELL, JUMP, OF COURSE!!!!

And we, stripping off our clothes, flew into that pool, plunging into the water and whooping in the spray. AAA, how awesome it was!!!! When you swim up to the waterfall, the water starts to suck you in and lazily pull you along; you haul yourself to the very edge — and there it churns down. You can lie on the rock and waterfall water will flow under you. That was definitely the first time in my life!!! Tons of sun blind your eyes, the river runs down from the mountain, everything shimmers, mmm))) We definitely liked this park =)

After sunbathing right by the waterfall on the rock for about 15 minutes, we went on (stupid lack of time, you won't even notice an hour there)

We drove and drove, and then suddenly, bam, we realized we'd been played a nasty trick. Seen the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"? Same story. We drove into a thicket where the trees were about four times bigger than the ones before. The pine smell was about four times stronger. And we were exactly as we had been) And you'd feel uneasy here if it weren't so interesting to see what's next. And next — even more. Trees, I mean))

Here, like in any other park, deer run around, squirrels rush by the dozens and all sorts of wildlife scurry here and there. You gradually get used to the sequoias; they no longer seem so enormous. Because there are trees like them all around, the sense of scale disappears. Actually, they're kind of funny. Imagine a huge wooden barrel with tiny twigs at the very invisible top. That's a sequoia. Well, at least most of them)) The younger ones (around 1000 years) still have branches and look like giant pines.

One cool thing here is that you can "walk" the length of a sequoia — on the ground there's a mark equal to the height of the tree. So you walk and walk and walk, when will it end, and it turns out you've only reached the lowest branch)))

The same trick is in Rome, by the way. St. Peter's Basilica is built so that you'll never see how huge it is. The letters inside near the ceiling look the size of a hand, but in fact they're taller than a person. Michelangelo (its architect) said the cathedral is a model of the Universe — "You are in it, but you'll never understand how vast it is." It's the same with the sequoias))

And likewise, you hardly realize how old they are. Because it's hard to understand that you're looking at something that calmly grew when there was not only no Pushkin in Russia, no Napoleon in France, no William the Conqueror in England and no Charlemagne in Germany, and not only no Moscovy, the outskirts of Paris, Londinium and Cologne, but none of the Russia, France, Germany and England as we know them. And when the tree in front of you was a bush the size of you, somewhere across the ocean on the other side of the Earth, in the desert, people were hauling stone blocks to build the Pyramids...

But anyway, we digress. So, the sequoias.

Their cones are sometimes half a meter long, and poor squirrels gnaw and flip them with great difficulty) Torment =) We looked, walked, breathed, saw fire scars from lightning (the trees are so old they've survived many fires, so their lower trunks are usually charred) and now onwards to THE BIGGEST TREE IN THE WORLD!!

It was already getting dark, we were walking along the trail leading about 500 meters from the road to the biggest tree. Polina was supposed to arrive in 5 minutes. Suddenly from the left and a little behind something wheezed and crackled. In the forest at dusk there are many shadows, so at first you couldn't make out what it was. When we figured it out — everyone was stunned.

On a low, fragile tree, about 40–50 meters from us, a brown bear was swaying at the very top, just like in cartoons. Apparently he didn't like being spotted in such an awkward position, and expressed his displeasure with very loud grunts.)))

We hurried away. The bear began to climb down and suddenly we saw Polina running late, heading right for where, by our calculations, the clumsy fellow would land. She was moving fast, but it was unclear whether she saw him. We were afraid to shout so as not to anger the animal. When she came up, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and began to tell her about the bear. From the sidelong look it was clear she'd never before been left as a bear's dinner, and that she'd hardly forget it))

After seeing the tree (named General Sherman), not too different from the others in its degree of gigantism, we got back in the car.))

We were short about 1.5–2 hours to properly wander the park (you really need about 5–6 hours). On the way we almost hit a raccoon, and swerving to avoid it we almost fell into an abyss (we realized that in the morning since it had been dark, but we remembered the spot and were shaken for another two hours=))

But that's another story)