Making big tracks among the giants of snowy Sequoia

Who says you can’t fall off snowshoes?

As I stood deep in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest under blue skies, enveloped by the silence that comes from a blanket of deep, fresh snow, I pondered how snowshoeing evolved from humans’ key to winter survival into one of America’s fastest-growing winter recreational sports.

Actually, I mostly pondered how our ranger-led snowshoe hike may have been the last great travel freebie around. Heck, the park service even lends the snowshoes free.

Twice a day on Saturdays and Sundays — and daily during holiday weeks — the first 24 people who reserve spots by calling the Giant Forest Museum can go on a two-hour naturalist-guided snowshoe adventure. The routes — all about a mile or two — vary depending on the weather and snow conditions.

The museum discourages adults from bringing children younger than 10, but it agreed to let our 6-year-old daughter, Sophie, come along if I outfitted her with kid-size snowshoes, which I rented from our lodge. I also promised to bail from the hike if it proved too strenuous or boring for her. It was neither, something I credit to Sophie’s enthusiasm for snow and our ranger’s engaging manner.

Because Sequoia had recently received 3 feet of snow, our hike went through such magnificent virgin powder that it pained me to trample the beauty of the scene with clunky snowshoes. Ranger Mary Anne Carlton broke trail in the fresh snow, and we followed single file. We were pretty far back in the line, so the snow was packed down for us, making snowshoeing simple. But what’s the fun in that? Pretty soon, most of the group fell out of our orderly line and began traipsing around in knee-high snow.

Carlton peppered the hike with enough “forest factoids,” as my husband, Vic, called them, to keep the more serious nature-lovers interested. We heard how the forest inhabitants prepare for the harsh winter in Sequoia, which averages 12 to 15 feet of snow a year. The black bears bulk up on the high-fat acorns before finding a small tree hollow to den in until spring. They don’t eat, drink or relieve themselves all winter, but their slumber isn’t the deep coma we tend to think it is. They wake up occasionally and aren’t in the best humor when they do.

The mule deer, meanwhile, head to lower elevations. Their spindly legs can’t handle the deep snow, and they can’t find the food they need to survive. My favorite, the hardy coyotes, do spend the winter in snow. They run in a straight line, their hind paws reusing the front paw prints to conserve energy — like snowshoeing in a single file.

Hikes vary, but all let Sequoia visitors experience the pristine wilderness just as conservationist John Muir may have done when he named the Giant Forest in 1875. At the northern fringe of this grove proudly stands the General Sherman Tree, which, although neither the tallest nor widest tree in the world, is considered the largest living tree because of its volume, 52,500 cubic feet; it weighs an estimated 2.7 million pounds, stands almost 275 feet tall and is about 2,100 years old.

Not second rate

Some would say Sequoia plays second fiddle to Yosemite, but we found that a big advantage. We felt as though we had the place to ourselves, even on a holiday weekend.

Truth be told, we wound up here largely by default. As a family of procrastinators, we waited until almost Thanksgiving before deciding we wanted to spend Christmas away and show Sophie snow for the first time. The only available accommodation inside the park at Yosemite was an unheated tent cabin without a bathroom.

At Sequoia, I booked a room with two queen-size beds at the Wuksachi Village and Lodge, the newest development in the national park, for a nightly rate of $125 plus tax. (The park’s $69-a-night winter special wasn’t available.)

A taped message warned us to carry tire chains, even if we had a four-wheel drive car, which we did. When the written confirmation arrived, the message was repeated: Bring chains.

Not only do we procrastinate, but we also don’t follow directions.

When we arrived at Sequoia’s south gate on Christmas Day, tired from driving 200 miles up Interstate 5 and California 99 in a steady rain, we were stopped.

“No chains? No entrance,” said the nice park ranger who directed us back nine miles to the Kaweah General Store, the only tire-chain renting business open in the park border town of Three Rivers, population 2,200.

“Honda Pilot?” asked the nice clerk at the general store. “Sorry, no chains to fit it,” he said, directing us to a Best Western motel, where we gratefully took a room and tried to make the best of things. We didn’t even protest when the Gateway Restaurant, the only restaurant serving dinner in Three Rivers on Christmas Day, made us come back three hours later and then seated us under a leaking roof.

But life improved in the morning when a Chevron station outfitted us with the required chains and we snaked our way up the winding mountain road 23 miles into the park.

Within minutes of getting to the Wuksachi Village and Lodge, we forgot the hassles and disappointments of the previous 18 hours. We were thrilled with the spaciousness of our room and its view of snowy trees and the mountains.

The 102 rooms are in three detached buildings a healthy walk from the main lodge and dining room. After tossing our bags in the room, we grabbed a fast lunch in the dining room. I was pleased to see a children’s menu, and our half-size salads were generous and amply filling.

The next stop was the Wuksachi’s ski shop, where we rented snowshoes for that afternoon and, for Sophie, the next day’s ranger-led hike.

Then came the moment of truth: Is it really possible to fall off your snowshoes? Yes, if your 6-year-old thinks it’s fun to step on the backs of them, tripping you up. But otherwise, no.

Snowshoes were first used about 6,000 years ago when hunters — probably somewhere in Mongolia, experts say — employed them to traverse deep snow without sinking. Their basic design hasn’t changed much — think tennis rackets strapped on your feet — although the newer plastic ones, like those we rented, are shorter and have nifty metal grips that make ice less slippery.

Despite our late lunch, after a couple of hours of snowshoeing we were starving. The lodge’s dinner menu offers adequate choices, but without specials or daily variety, it might grow tiresome during longer stays. We found contentment with grilled Atlantic salmon and lavender chicken in honey cranberry sauce. Sophie had tasty sweet potato ancho soup from the kids’ menu.

We all slept restlessly, perhaps because of the 7,200-foot altitude or the room’s heat, which we couldn’t manage to lower. But we woke up hungry and raring to do more exploring.

The lodge’s breakfast buffet ($8.50 for adults, $3.95 for children), made up for our disappointment at dinner. Buffets serve the purpose of quickly feeding a crowd that just wants to eat fast and move on to the main event — which in our case was playing in the snow.

Our ranger-led walk wasn’t until 2 p.m., so we used the morning to check out nearby Wolverton Snow Play Area, a trail head with great-looking cross-country ski trails and rolling hills where Sophie had her first saucer-sled rides.

We returned to the lodge for lunch and then headed to the museum to join ranger Carlton. I regretted that we didn’t have more time to poke around the interesting little museum.

The two hours in the wilderness flew by as we tested our endurance with each step, stopping frequently to catch our breath and absorb the serenity. During these stops, Carlton showed us what we otherwise wouldn’t have seen: how four little birds flocked together to hunt for insects in the tree. How the shape of the tree helps it cope with the weight of the freshly fallen snow. And how, on our own feet, were tools to surviving the winter.

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Budget for three

Expenses for this trip:

Dinner

Gateway Restaurant $77.86

Best Western Holiday Lodge

One night with tax $68.31

Wuksachi Lodge

Two nights with tax $275.00

Wuksachi meals

Two breakfasts,

two lunches, two dinners $208.78

Snow chain rental

$30.00

Snowshoe rentals

$82.00

Gas

$60.00

Final tab $801.95

CONTACT:

Wuksachi Village and Lodge, 64740 Wuksachi Way (P.O. Box 89), Sequoia National Park, CA 93262; (888) 252-5757 or (559) 565-4070, https://www.visitsequoia.com .

Giant Forest Museum, Sequoia National Park, 47050 Generals Highway, Three Rivers, CA 93271; (559) 565-4480, https://www.nps.gov/seki .

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Ann Brenoff is an assistant Commentary page editor at The Times.