Every Wednesday at diabetes camp, we’d hike to the Grant Tree.
Camp Sequoia Lake sat just outside Kings Canyon National Park — a week each summer for kids with Type 1 diabetes, up in the Sierra at elevation where the air is thin and the trees are enormous. I staffed that camp for 15 years, across my twenties and thirties. Wednesday was the big hike day, and the Grant Tree was the destination. Every year, different kids. Same tree. Same moment when they’d look up and just go quiet after an hour or so fighting the hike. That moment never got old.
When I found myself spending the better part of the week in Hanford with some free time,I started mapping out a day trip into the mountains, Kings Canyon was the obvious first call. I know Highway 180 up to Grant Grove as well as any road I’ve ridden. It felt like a natural fit.
The night before, I wrestled with the decision. I’d spent the previous day at the General Sherman Tree — over in Sequoia National Park, the largest living thing by volume in the world. Having seen the Grant Tree so many times over the years, it was good to finally check Sherman off the list. But the snow load was light. Kings Canyon, I figured, was probably running similar conditions. The tree doesn’t need snow to make an impression — but I wasn’t going for the tree this time. I was going for winter. I wanted to see the gentle giants cloaked in snow. This wasn’t the trip to do that.
Late that night I switched plans and pointed toward Highway 168 — Shaver Lake, Huntington Lake: territory I didn’t know nearly as well. My nephews go to a Boy Scout camp somewhere up in that area, and I’d been meaning to get up there and understand the geography better to have better conversations with them. The snow reports looked promising, and sitting a thousand feet higher than either grove, I was good with rolling the dice.
A Word About 168 — Because It’s Actually Two Roads
Highway 168 is an interesting dichotomy. The western half climbs out of Clovis, winds up through the Sierra foothills, and terminates at the eastern shore of Huntington Lake. The eastern half — a completely separate segment — picks up at Lake Sabrina (locals pronounce it “suh-brine-uh,” for what it’s worth), crosses US 395, and dead-ends just shy of the Nevada border where it meets Nevada Highway 266.
What makes this part of the Sierra unique is the absence of any paved crossing between Highway 178 near Bakersfield to the south and Highway 120 near Yosemite to the north. That’s a big gap. The eastern side of 168 climbs to around 8,000 feet and essentially functions as a service road for Edison’s water infrastructure plus access to a handful of high alpine resorts open in summer. The western side is where the recreators go — Shaver Lake, Huntington Lake, the Boy Scout camps. That’s the side I was headed for.
The Central Valley Is a Different World
This is my first time spending real time in the Central Valley — not blowing through it on the way somewhere else, but actually being here for a week. That’s a different experience entirely.
Charging infrastructure is coming along out here, but it’s not ubiquitous once you leave Highway 99 or Interstate 5. I’d found an off-the-radar high-speed charger at Visalia Ford and honestly expected the runaround. That’s not what happened. They pointed me straight to the 350 kW charger, asked good questions about the Rivian, and we had a genuinely easy conversation. I mentioned Ford had killed the fully electric F-150 Lightning. They knew. Nobody seemed happy about it.
Ford couldn’t have made the charging easier. I didn’t need to download an app. I didn’t have to create an account. I just needed to tap my credit card. What a concept! Plus the charging cable was as thick as I’d ever seen, lol!
One thing that surprised me: how visible the mountains are from the valley floor in winter. Snow-capped peaks dominated the eastern horizon — it reminded me of driving through the Fraser Valley up in BC. In summer, air quality and California haze erase that view almost completely. Today it was clear, the foothills were going green, and honestly that alone was worth the drive out.
Prather, Tollhouse, Pine Ridge
The climb up 168 moves through a handful of small communities that don’t ask much from you and if you blink, you’ll miss the opportunity. Prather is the first real outpost — a gas station, a market, the kind of place that keeps the lights on for the people living in the hills above. Tollhouse sits a few miles up, named for the old toll road that made this climb possible before the state took it over. Pine Ridge feels like the last exhale before things get serious — the trees thicker, the grade steeper, the valley already behind you. It was awesome seeing the green heading into the hills. It was great seeing the green heading into the hills — I’m so used to seeing this terrain dried out and brown by June.
Shaver Lake
By the time I rolled into Shaver Lake, the old Jimmy Buffett song “When the Coast Is Clear” came to mind. The tourist traps were empty; the air was already cool. The lake told the real story this time of year — it’s here to store water for the dry months ahead. The level was low, noticeably so. I worry as it’s been a bit of a dry winter and the lake level is considerably low. One can see the math playing out right on the shoreline. Hopefully the snowpack above delivers over the next few months, as the math may not work out otherwise.
Into the Burn
Just above the snow line, the Forest Service has been doing prescribed burns. Columns of smoke rose in the distance, drifting across the high alpine terrain. A little haze now beats a catastrophic fire later — and this area knows that math better than most.
The Creek Fire of 2020 burned more than 379,000 acres through this corridor, making it one of the largest single fires in California history. The burn scars are hard to miss — ghost forests of silver and black timber stretch across the ridgelines, and the landscape is still mid-recovery five years on. It’s a sobering reminder of what’s at stake with every dry year. The whole area reminded me of my time outside of Chico – where the Paradise fire wreaked havoc across that landscape.
Huntington Lake
Temperatures were in the mid-30s by the time I reached Huntington Lake. The town was buttoned up tight — everything closed for winter except the ski resort at China Peak on the eastern edge of the lake. Google Maps showed the roads on the far side as closed, and even though they looked plowed, I decided not to push it. It was a solo trip in an area I didn’t know well, with very few people around. I’ve made worse decisions, but I’ve also learned to read the tea leaves of this particular situation. Age does that.
I climbed out of the Rivian and immediately sank just above my ankles in the snow.
These are Georgia boots — model 8040 for those readers that are keeping track. I’ve had two pairs over twenty years of riding, with somewhere around 160,000 miles of road worn across both sets. They’ve never let me down.
One Christmas, my parents asked what I wanted. I mentioned the boots — my current pair was getting close to done. They bought them without hesitation, and honestly that meant more than the boots themselves. Every parent worries about their kid on a motorcycle. Buying motorcycle gear isn’t exactly a neutral act — it’s an acknowledgment that this is real, this is who I am, and they’re okay with it. These boots carry that love with them on every ride.
Standing ankle-deep in Sierra Nevada snow felt like an appropriate place to think about that.
Kaiser Pass Road — which picks up where Highway 168 ends and climbs toward Florence Lake and Edison Lake — was well under snow. I’ve been up that road at least once, maybe fifteen years ago. It’s rough, sandy, and not for the faint of heart. Edison Lake was worth it then, and Florence Lake remains on the list.
I did what I often do when time is a budget item: I pushed to the far end to understand the landscape, then slowed down on the return hoping the light would cooperate. It did. The weather held just long enough for a few shots of the Rivian with the lake behind it before the mountains started cooking up other plans.
The Storm Shows Up
Cresting back out of the basin, it was clear that winter had decided to follow me off the hill. This wasn’t a Bay Area system tracking east — the mountains had their own weather going, and it was coming in behind me. The forecast called for a solid dusting at minimum, and probably more than that.
What caught me off guard was how close those cumulus clouds were to the road on the way down. They were billowing and enormous, close enough that reaching out the window felt almost reasonable. I’ve driven through a lot of mountain weather, but I can’t remember clouds sitting quite that low and immediate. It was something to see.
Back Through the Valley
Rivian maps routed me home through Friant and Millerton rather than punching me back through Clovis. It was a good call. The long way gave me the valley at last light — the fields were catching that late amber, and the almond trees were just starting to bloom.
I missed that two years ago on the Yosemite trip to see the Firefalls. The Central Valley in February, when the almonds are flowering, is its own thing entirely, and it’s easy to overlook when you’re just passing through.
In the Bay Area it’s Teslas, software projects, and blinking link lights in data centers. Out here it’s duallys, dirt, and growing the food that feeds the world. These are two very different Californias in close proximity to each other — and that’s exactly what a lot of people get wrong about this state. We are about as diverse as it comes.
I thought about that Wednesday hike to the Grant Tree for a good part of the drive home. Kings Canyon will keep. I’ll get back up there. But I’m glad I went looking for winter instead.
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