A visit to Nelder Grove, sort of

Nelder Grove is a little heard of Giant Sequoia grove just on the outskirts of Oakhurst, CA.  Two primary roads travel into Yosemite National Park.  One runs through Mariposa, and the other through Oakhurst.  Gretchen and I decided to go see some Giant Sequoias the other weekend and Nelder Grove hosts the closest ones.  We searched online, but could not find directions.  So we just headed out and hoped to find a sign directing us to the grove.  On our way out of Oakhurst, we knew we were looking on the right side of the road, but that was it.  Typically, Giant Sequoias grow at high elevations, and Oakhurst, at 2500 ft., does not deserve that title.  The road out of Oakhurst was heading up into the Sierra National Forest, so we decided to keep driving until we saw a sign for Nelder Grove.  Unfortunately for us, no such sign exists.  After about 15 miles, we went up about 2000 feet in elevation and hit the snow line, which we were unprepared for.

Pond near the town of Fish Camp

We kept driving and found a sign that said “Snow Play Area”.  I had never heard of such a thing.  I though any location that had more than an inch of snow was a snow play area.  I was a bit upset to be bound to a set geographic area and that I might be in violation of some rule if I threw a snowball outside of that designated area.  Well, we decided to check it out since we had not yet found any Sequoias.  We were surprised to find full parking lot and a National Park Ranger guarding the entrance.  I asked what this entertaining anomaly was and also about Nelder Grove.  To our surprise, we had in fact passed Nelder Grove about 20 minutes back.  The grove happens to be beneath two feet of snow 2 miles down a closed Forest Service road.  On the bright side, we happened to be about a mile from Yosemite National Park and arguably the most famous Giant Sequoia grove in the world, Mariposa Grove.  A fortunate turn of events.  So we briefly hopped out of the car and took a look around the snow play area.  A solid comparison would be like an afternoon at a county park on a holiday.  I should not judge, but it was a very unique mountain redneck assemblage.  The snow play area was a hill approximately 10 feet in height and maybe fifteen feet long.  It was inhabited by about a hundred children slipping and sliding on a frozen sheet of ice.  On top of this, the parents, seeing an apparent tailgating opportunity, were pulling out hot dogs and charcoal.  We failed to bring a side dish, so we left.  We got to the entrance of Yosemite by 2 o’clock.   A ranger at the entrance informed me that the road to Mariposa Grove was closed to vehicle traffic, but we were more than welcome to walk the 2 miles up to the grove. So that’s what we did, without water or snow shoes.  We were limited on time since we had about 3 hours before the sun went down.  We decided to hoof it.  About 40 minutes later, we spotted our first Giant Sequoia.

Bachelor and the three Sisters

Gretchen described it as “ginormous”.  It was one of the smaller ones we found in the next hour. We did get to see the Grizzly Giant, the oldest in the grove and the 25^th largest tree in the world.

If you look close you can see Gretchen at the base of the tree

We roamed the grove virtually free of other visitors for as long as we could and not hike in the dark.  To our discredit, we were not the only brave travelers to the groves that day.  For Yosemite, with an annual visitation of 3.5 million, the company was sparse.  Multiple misguided families with children were heading to the groves as the sun was about to fall behind the hills on the horizon.  We did not hear any reports the next day or two of any tragedy, so they must have made it out alright.  Of course, I doubt they got to see any sequoias and probably did not have a very fun hike back.  We made it back to the car just before sunset and headed home.  The end.

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