After our time in Oregon and San Francisco, Bold Bison’s summer 2022 West Coast tour continued in the southern Sierra Nevada. We had been engaged by Sequoia Parks Conservancy (SPC), the nonprofit friends group for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, to help them tell the story of, and to continue raising recovery funds for, the KNP Complex Fire that had raged through the Parks and their Sequoia Groves in 2021.

The KNP Complex Fire storytelling project was actually the second project we’d had with Sequoia Parks Conservancy. The first was creating the brand and website for the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition, whose members include the National Park Service, USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Geological Survey, Tule River Indian Tribe, State of California, University of California Berkeley, and Tulare County, along with nonprofit partners, Save the Redwoods League, Giant Sequoia Monument Association, and Sequoia Parks Conservancy.

So on Thursday, July 7 [2022], Patrick and I picked up our rental car—an alarmingly fuel inefficient Toyota Four Runner—in downtown San Francisco, crossed the Bay Bridge, and continued down the Central Valley toward Sequoia National Park.

Patrick , who had never seen it before, was stunned by the Central Valley, particularly coming from the Upper Midwest. He was not expecting it to be so incredibly dry and dust swept. It hammered home some hard truths about where and how we will be able to grow food in this country in the future.

Eventually, we turned east toward the Sierras and drove up through the foothills to the town of Three Rivers, our home base until the following Monday.

We had booked ourselves into an AirBnB on the outskirts of town. The house itself was fine, but the view from its large deck was just stupid.

It offered a panorama eastward toward the Park.

After unpacking that first evening, we grilled and enjoyed the sunset.

Next morning, Friday, July 8 [2022], we were up early to check-in at Sequoia Parks Conservancy’s office near the Foothills Visitor Center, just inside Sequoia National Park. The most pressing thing we needed to accomplish that morning was filming an interview with SPC’s Executive Director Savannah Boiano.

We decided it would be best to film Savannah in the Giant Forest, so we headed up, Savannah leading and Patrick and me driving up the twisting, looping, occasionally terrifying portion of Generals Highway between Foothills Visitor Center and the Giant Forest. When Sean and I had visited Sequoia National Park almost exactly four years earlier, I’d avoided having to drive the road by taking the shuttle bus from Three Rivers. I’d end up driving this stretch of road—which Patrick dubbed “Brandon’s Folly”—six times over the next three days.

Up in the Giant Forest, we found a quiet place among some Sequoias, relatively apart from the noise of the road or the more well-trod visitor areas. There, Savannah gave a smashing interview that we edited into SPC’s call-to-action fundraising efforts for fire recovery (above).

When we were done, Savannah had to head back down for afternoon meetings. Patrick, who hadn’t really taken it all in yet since we were so focused on the shoot, suddenly realized where he was and began to wander off into the forest, literally dazed by the big trees.

I called him back to snap him out of it. We still had work to do that day.

We headed back down to SPC’s offices and filmed an additional interview with a staff member. During that interview, an NPS Ranger came by searching for a bear that had just been spotted in the adjacent parking lot. Patrick practically fell down the chaparral slope trying to see the bear, but it was gone.

After the interviews, we called it a day. The following day was going to be jam-packed with shooting b-roll footage and still photos in the Park. We grabbed some more food for dinner and hung out at the house until it was time to go to bed.

Next morning, Saturday, July 9 [2022], we were up, dressed, and in the Park early to meet Ranger Leah, who was the project coordinator for the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition. We’d be spending the day with her as she took us to view and capture some of the most fire-damaged areas in and around the Giant Forest.

It was a sobering day, to say the least.

The fire began on September 9, 2021 when lightning from a late-summer thunderstorm ignited two parts of the forest. These two small fires eventually grew and merged into the KNP Complex Fire, which roared through some of the most heavily visited and iconic sections of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

The fire burned for ninety-seven days.

By the time it was put out (with the help of wet December weather), the fire had burned through 88,000 acres and sixteen Giant Sequoia groves. In the places where the fire burned most intensely, it baked the soil, destroying all vegetation.

Bold Bison’s work with SPC continued past our visit. Ultimately, we helped them create an impact report for the fire and the recovery response. You can read it here.

That morning, though, Ranger Leah, Patrick, and I toured both some of the most impacted portions of the Giant Forest and some of the least impacted. We wanted to capture images and video footage that showed a complete picture: both devastation and magic.

We parked for the day in the large lot near the Giant Forest Museum. First, Ranger Leah took us on the Sunset Rock Trail so that we could see one of the areas adjacent to the Giant Forest that the fire had impacted severely.

We were walking through the edge of the Giant Forest area. Few Sequoias, but also limited fire damage.

But then the views began to open up to the west/southwest and we got our first glimpses of the scale of the impact.

Whole sections of the forest below looked like used wooden matches.

We hiked out onto Sunset Rock, where we saw the almost-dead remains of manzanita clinging to crevices.

But we also saw the very beginning of forest renewal.

After taking it in and getting some panorama shots, we headed back to the trailhead.

Next, Ranger Leah wanted us—particularly Patrick since this was his first visit—to see a completely untouched section of the forest, so we walked the short distance to Round Meadow.

Here she explained some of the history of the Giant Forest area. In the first half of the 20th century, the Park Service had overdeveloped the forest, with lodges, campgrounds, and visitor facilities. Once Round Meadow had been filled with cabins. But now it was well along in a complete wet meadow restoration.

We slowly circumnavigated the meadow on a well-maintained, ADA-accessible trail/boardwalk.

And then Patrick’s big wish was fulfilled. We spotted a young Black Bear having breakfast in the middle of the meadow.

Patrick was giddy.

So here we had the best of the National Parks—restored habitat, charismatic megafauna, respectful visitors, astounding trees, a wonderful Ranger—almost immediately adjacent to devastation.

Next we headed the short distance to the Moro Rock area, perched at the edge of the Giant Forest, some 3,500 feet above the Middle Fork Kaweah River below.

Sean and I had been to Moro Rock on our visit, so I had lived memories of what it used to look like, which made the impact all the more vivid.

Ranger Leah and Patrick decided to go and get some shots from the top of Moro Rock. Like last time, when Sean had done the same, I demurred. It’s a bit much for my fear of heights.

So instead I hiked west along the edge of the plateau capturing photos and footage.

I walked up to Hanging Rock, which Sean and I had checked out last time.

This time, it offered more devastation shots.

The area also had some of the most impacted Giant Sequoias we’d seen close-at-hand.

I looped back around toward Moro Rock, just taking it all in.

It was a good place to see potential erosion danger and built infrastructure impacts in a popular part of the Giant Forest area.

It was also a good place to see how some trees were severely burnt and others, like the Roosevelt Tree, were almost untouched.

I rejoined Patrick and Ranger Leah, and we hopped on the shuttle bus to head up toward the General Sherman Tree.

The driver of the bus was…something. She was just simply not having people’s nonsense and kept shouting and complaining. Patrick adored her.

The General Sherman Tree, the world’s largest, escaped the KNP fire unscathed, in part because it was one of the iconic individual Giant Sequoias that firefighters wrapped in fire-retardant aluminum at its base.

After visiting General Sherman, we three hiked into the Giant Forest. Ranger Leah wanted to take us to the Senate Group for photos and footage.

In this section of the Giant Forest, most fire damage was from long ago, with only occasional, distant glimpses of damage from the KNP Complex Fire.

The Senate Group, a cluster of huge trees, has its own kind of magic.

After seeing the Senate Group and the nearby House Group, we circled around to begin our hike back to the shuttle pick-up.

We hopped on the shuttle back to the Giant Forest Museum parking area. Our time in the Park for that day had come to a close. Patrick and I thanked Ranger Leah profusely for giving us a day-long tour and said goodbye (until Monday when we’d be meeting with her and others about the coalition website).

Patrick and I headed back down to Three Rivers and stopped at the Annual Hotdog Festival, where SPC had a table. We had some hotdogs and said hi to Savannah.

If we had spent less time in the Giant Forest, we’d have headed up to Mineral King, an entirely separate, less visited part of Sequoia National Park. But it was already 4pm, and we decided to head back to the AirBnB and relax.

Next morning, our ostensible day off since it was Sunday, we’d be headed to Kings Canyon National Park.