Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are just south of their more famous cousin Yosemite National Park. They are all part of the Sierra Navada Mountain range, and the Sequoia National Park contains the highest mountain in the 48 contiguous states, Mt Whitney at 4417m (14491ft). For reference, Mt Kosciusko is 2230m (7316ft).

We drove to the southern entrance of the park on Friday, arriving late afternoon. We have noticed that it is getting dark quite early (before 5pm) and so headed up the very windy mountain road hoping to get in a walk before the sun went down. Well, the road was a lot more windy than we'd imagined, and we were driving at about 15miles/hr (24km/hr). We made it as far as a lookout before deciding to call it a day. When driving back down the mountain Rob saw a Black Bear crossing the road in the rear-view mirror, but by the time he had the camera out, another car had come along and the bear was gone.

We highly recommend the Best Western at Three Rivers where we spent Friday night. Why? Because it was quiet, and the complimentary breakfast included waffles which we made ourselves - they had two waffle makers and plastic cups of waffle mix. Three minutes later we had fresh hot waffles.

We left early and after stopping at the Visitors Centre for some great advice ("If it starts snowing, drive to your Saturday night destination"), drove to Hospital Rock, a rock with Native American pictographs. Then it was up the windy road to the Giant Forest, a change in altitude of 1.4km, and into the snow! There was snow on the side of the road, and it was cold! We had a look around the Giant Forest museum, where the size of the Sequoia Pines was compared with tall buildings, blue whales etc. After putting on more appropriate clothing we went for a walk around the Big Trees Trail, and saw some huge trees in amongst snow covered ground.

Further on, we saw the General Sherman tree, the world's largest tree (in volume). The Sequoias are not like the average pine tree which tapers to the top - the Sequoias do not taper as much, and appear somewhat stubby. We then walked the Congress Trail, named because different groves of Sequoias had been named "The House Group" and the "Senate Group". Whilst walking through the snow covered forest, the cloud and fog came in, and then very fine hail and then snow. Fortunately the snow was light and we didn't have to rush back to the car.

The fog was so thick that when Rob trudged through the snow to a photo point to take a photo of Jo standing a the base of a large Sequoia, he couldn't see her through the fog. It wasn't until he was a couple of metres away that he could make our her figure through the fog.

As the snow seemed to be falling more when we arrived back at the car, we decided to follow the ranger's advice and drive onto the Grant Grove village where we were staying Saturday night. The 25miles (40km) took over an hour and a half, and there were patches of road which were completely white with snow. Near our destination we passed a Ranger who was stopping people proceeding up the mountain.

After a late lunch in our cabin, the snow was still falling steadily and after looking around the gift shop we retired to our cabin for a game of scrabble.The snow stopped falling around night fall, and not much more fell overnight.

In the morning, the world looked beautiful, and the sky was clear. We didn't want to have to put snow chains on the car tyres (which we had brought with us as we were required to have them to travel through the park) and so we went for a walk down to the Grant Grove. We walked down the road which was nicely covered in snow until the grader came along and pushed the snow off the road. The Grant Grove was beautiful - the red-brown trunks of the Sequoias stood out amongst the white of the snow, and the green of the other trees. To stop people trampling the plants and further damaging the shallow roots of the Sequoias, there were fences marking the trail. All of the signs were covered in snow, and we could only read those closer enough to the fence to reach to clear off the snow. When the sun comes out, it starts snowing/raining because the snow on the trees melts and falls large lumps at times - we wore hats to keep us warm and keep us dry. We weren't the first people to have walked the trail in the snow, and we followed a set of prints in the snow for a mile (1.6km) back to the Grant Grove Village. Without the footprints we'd have been lost (well, we were never far from the road) as picking out the trail in the snow was impossible at times.

With the road clear we headed to Kings Canyon, and it was amazing to drop through the cloud and see the amazing scenery of snow capped mountains and deep valleys. We were unable to drive far into Kings Canyon as the road is closed during winter, but we're keen to return in spring when the waterfalls will be roaring and the flowers will be out.

We returned to LA via the northern park exit, driving past a small herd of deer eating grass under a tree surrounded by snow. It's amazing what people miss when they insist on driving fast through the mountain roads.