Working in Sequoia NP

A couple weeks back I was tasked with helping a coworker wrap up some winter prep down at some sites in Sequoia NP.  I was excited because I'd never been there and would get a chance to see some sights (sort of).  There was 6-10" of snow on the ground so I packed all my winter gear and headed out early on a Monday morning to meet my coworker down there.  On my approach to the park I got a phone call from the coworker telling me the road I was going to take was closed due to snow (it was being plowed).  We turned around and drove around to the southern entrance, which added on another hour+ to the drive.  On top of that, there is on-going construction that causes road closures for 2 hours at a time so we had some time to kill when we got into the park...

This is a swimming hole we visited while waiting for the road to open back up.

After we got through the construction we finally reached our destination (about 3 hours later than anticipated).  The first 2 days and the last day we stayed down in the lower basin.  Here's some photos from those areas:

One of the stream sites.

The area where the cabin we stayed at was.  The clearing in the center of the photo has instruments in it as well that are monitoring groundwater levels.  The fog is blocking out most of the scenery.

The third day we went to the upper basin.  The trailhead started around 7,800 ft and we we hiked up to 9,300 ft.  I thought it'd be a really tough 3.5 miles but it didn't end up being too bad.  The worst part was the hike back in the dark on the icy trail.  My knee/hip didn't like that very much.  This is what we saw when we got to the top of the ridge:

This was my first view of the High Sierra and the Great Western Divide.  Most of those peaks are between 12,000 and 14,000 ft.