Welcome to Big Blend Radio's California Sequoia Country Show. Home to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Giant Sequoia National Monument and Sequoia National Forest and the Charming Historic Agricultural Communities that make up Tulare County. Welcome everybody, it is September, we're so excited because it starts to cool down a little bit in California Sequoia Country, which is Tulare County, makes up amazing agricultural towns like Tulare, Visalia, Porterville, Dinuba, Lindsay, Woodlake, Springville, Porterville. Did I leave anybody out, Suzanne, help me on this? Oh, Exeter, we can't leave out Exeter, so three rivers, which is the gateway to Sequoia National Park. All these awesome communities, all of them have public art, all of them have awesome shopping, awesome food, breweries, basically you need to go. But the crowning jewels are also the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks with Giant Sequoia National Forest and also Sequoia National Forest. So today we're going to talk about what you can experience at the beginning of fall, September and going into October. So first we've got Holly Brown here from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and September is a big month for Sequoia and Kings Canyon because the parks are, well, Sequoia National Park is celebrating a birthday and I believe this is one of our oldest parks, right? Holly, welcome. Hi, thank you. Yes, that's right. So September 25th is the birthday of Sequoia National Park, which is the nation's second oldest national park. It was founded in 1890. Wow, wow. And so, and at that time, Kings Canyon came after, but that was actually the General Grant National Park, right? That's right. So we started off first as General Grant National Park and then when they realized there was more to include it ended up becoming Sequoia or I'm sorry. And got bigger. Yeah, I got bigger and Sequoia National Park kind of got bigger at that time too, right? Yeah, we've grown a lot. We have incorporated a lot more of Sequoia Grove since our beginning days. Oh, but we want that. You've got Sequoia National Forest in there that kind of connects in between the park and then all the two parks and Giant Sequoia National Monument. So that's really cool that you're all kind of connected with that. So people have so many different experiences between the parks, the forest. But we do also set. So September 25th is the big birthday. Do we get cake or should we just bring cake? We need to bring cake. We're going to get a cake again. Didn't we talk about cake last month to come on? We want cake. We want cake. So, but then today as we record this and, you know, we're here every first Thursday, everyone. We're recording on the anniversary of the 60th, it's the Wilderness Act, right? So can you give everyone just an overview of what the wilderness is versus the main parks of a park because the wilderness is not just in a national park, right? It could be connected with either like a monument or something too, right? That's right. The Wilderness Act was signed into law, September 3rd of 1964. So we're celebrating the 60th anniversary and it was President Lyndon B. Johnson who signed it in and we're all thankful that he did because the wilderness is very specific. So there's several different definitions in the actual wilderness act itself and I would encourage everybody to celebrate today by reading the Wilderness Act. It's not that long, but it talks about how the wilderness is untrammeled, meaning that it hasn't been touched by a man and where man is the visitor and not the constant. And so there's a lot of really cool specific definitions about how the wilderness is just left as it is untrammeled by man and it's a place for people and it was reserved specifically for all people so that they could connect to the wilderness and see nature as it is and enjoy it for its peaceful nature. So for those who are travelers, park travelers who want to go into the wilderness, it's not like you just go tromping off into the wilderness, right? Isn't there like a permit or like you need to check in so people know that you're going there because there's bears out there, y'all, and I'm saying this, y'all, because we are in New Orleans today and there's another national park out here. You have bears. They have alligators. They should eat. Yeah, you're right. So when people want to visit the wilderness, there's a couple of things they can do. They can first start planning where in the wilderness they want to go. And a lot of national parks have wilderness. Our park specifically has a large wilderness. So it's a park that people frequently do visit specifically for all of the untouched areas that we have. And what they'll need to do is figure out where they want to go and then go to recreation dot gov and make a reservation there for a wilderness permit. And of course, if people don't know exactly where they want to go, we have a whole wilderness office that people can find the phone number online and just give a call and our rangers are happy to help plan a wilderness trip as well. And of course, that should kind of be based on someone's experience and how comfortable they are out in the wilderness and how much they know about preparation. There's a lot of things involved in wilderness travel. You have to bring your own food, some water filtration. It's pretty detailed and very exciting. Yeah, it is. And you travel as light as possible, otherwise you're carrying a ton. So don't think about a suitcase, it ain't happening, not at all. Yeah, really, and you want to pack it in, pack it out, right? Pack it in, pack it out. Yep, keep these areas that we have decided to protect pristine by carrying out your trash. So the permits are important to go to recreation dot gov. Is this year round or is it only in the spring through fall, winter, when is the open season for this? Yeah, so I would have to double check, but I think we're coming up on the end of the quota season. So part of the Wilderness Act and how we protect the wilderness is by having a quota system. So only a certain number of people are in the wilderness at any given time. And so that's another reason we have that wilderness office so that we can issue permits that are appropriate for the amount of people that are allowed out in the wilderness at any given time. Does it matter by season? Does anybody want to go out there in the snow? Like, I don't know, man. I heard that you sleep naked in, you know, sleeping bags to keep warmer. I brought that up on a show before and I'm still wondering if it's true, but you don't have to answer that, Holly. Okay. She's a federal employee. She's not allowed to. Yeah. But yeah, so absolutely different seasons, different areas are great for different seasons in the park. We do have a lot of, we do have a lot of access to some cool places, even in the winter. And that's a little bit closer to our front country is what I would recommend, but people can still go on day hikes here in the winter, which is really great. Okay. Cool to know. Cool to know. So public lands is coming up. That's another big thing too, right? So yeah. Yeah. Public land stay is coming up. And that's really nice because it celebrates all of those different land management agencies that help protect our wilderness and help protect our public land so that everybody can enjoy them. Ah, that's cool. That's cool. I love public lands day because that's what we do. We travel full time to document these places and we have a lot and we have to think, you know, America's National Park Service just served, celebrated its birthday, right? It was celebrate August 25th, everyone. And I can't believe it like this was the first place in the world for national parks. You know, you think about it. And then all these other countries, including Africa, like continent, you know, had all these different parks put into place. And so it's really iconic what we have done with America's National Parks and the connection between the parks and the communities I think is something very important to touch on. And that's what we do on these shows with you guys coming on, talking about Sequoia's, you know, the Sequoia country, which is Tulare County and the community. So Suzanne, vice alias, pretty much, I would say the biggest city, right, in Tulare County? The county seat anyway, right? Exactly. Yeah, but it's not like going to LA, right? It's no, it doesn't feel like a city to me, coming to Visalia. Like how many people do you think are there that live in Visalia, 140,000 people? Oh, that's a nice balance. And Tulare is growing, right Cassidy Cassidy is here from the Tulare, Tulare Chamber of Commerce. How many people do you think are in Tulare now as a city? Not sure. I'm not too sure. But I know it's growing exponentially. Yeah, a little bit under Visalia, we're like a little bit lower population than Visalia. Oh, wow. So it's there. And then Portavos growing, I mean, everyone's growing, but you have a lot of agricultural going on. So a lot of harvesting happening now, right? Is it busy, Suzanne, in the fields? Yeah, they're, you know, it's busy year round here. There are different crops that are ready for production at any time during the year. So I think like they pick oranges, even like 10 to 12 months a year, 10 months a year, maybe. Wow. Yeah. So there's lots of different things, nuts and forced dairy is big here and that's, you know, daily, you know, yeah, Cassidy gets to have cheese and ice cream every single day, right? I agree. Frothy milk and her coffee. Yeah. And Tulare. Tulare knows about dairy for sure. So let's talk about some of the events and, you know, I encourage people, like when they go to the park to spend days also off the hill, off the mountain, not the morrow, off of Morrow Rock, spend some time in the parks, spend some time in the communities because there was the events, there was the museums, there's so many attractions, there's other parks and public lands to visit too. But Suzanne, tell us a little bit of what's going on in Visalia. Give us a little overview of Visalia for those who are new listening because you got a very historic downtown and yeah, public art and yeah, well, this is actually a really great time for all of these communities in just outside of the park because we're entering into fall. The weather starts to cool off. There's a lot of great public art throughout the communities to enjoy. And because of that great weather, we have a lot of festivals and events that happened during the fall. We're excited. We have something new happening this year in Visalia called in a landscape classical music in the wild, which you know a little bit about Lisa. You've met Hunter Noak before. Hunter is a classical pianist and he brings his nine foot Steinway piano into open spaces, outdoor spaces and plays and encourages people to explore the outdoors while listening to his music. You're given a pair of headsets so you can listen to the music and can travel. I don't know how far away from the piano, you can get pretty far and he really encourages people to explore the natural surroundings that he's playing and while listening to him play the music. So it's a really unique event this year. It's held at the Tulare County Museum in Muni Grove Park. So you know, that's a great space. It's California's first county park was Muni Grove. So you know, it's a great place to visit and then to have this event happen on September 15th in the afternoon, early evening, bring your own chairs and you can just explore or not lay down on your back and just listen to the music. I've even seen pictures of people laying under the piano, touching the piano to hear the vibrations from the instrument. So a really fun event, it's a great opportunity for people to explore the outdoors and listening to music. Those that maybe haven't listened to classical music before might have a new appreciation for this whole event. So this is what weekend again is this happening because I know that if you book it the right time, write it in the hotels and Visalia has a lot of great hotels, that you can actually get tickets for the event. Yeah. Or Visalia is offering a special deal for people that reserve a hotel room night for the night of September 15th. We'll give them two tickets for the event. So that's a great incentive to come to the area and of course hope you stay and go visit the parks and take advantage of these beautiful parks in our backyard that are being celebrated through Public Lands Day and the birthday of Sequoia National Park. Yeah. Great time. That's a good month. Well let's also touch on the dark sky because the festival, the dark sky festival, I remember it began like about a few years ago, three days and of course he kind of had it. We all know we had to slow things down a bit. There was this little history of the world that slowed everything down that kind of sucked. But you know, but now we're getting back into three days of this festival growing and it seems like we always think about, you know, going into our parks during the day. But I love this festival because the number one thing is it reminds us that parks protect the land, but also the sky by having this and I mean the National Park is the ultimate protection of a piece of land, right, and it protects history, you know, nature, but also the sky. So sky pollution is a big deal with the parks, right Holly? That's part of why we have the National Park is the sky. So this dark sky program reminds us that things go on, things do go bump in the night in the parks. I'm just saying they do. They may scary. They may do things. But also if you look up for those of us living in cities, we often don't get to see those amazing star nights, the star filled nights, you know, the milky way. You can see things on your phone and a computer, but if you can see it for yourself, this is a big deal. And then actually understand what we're looking at. That's the whole thing too. So Suzanne, this is a big event every year. It is a big event, you know, dark skies are really important to the health of the National Park. Holly, you can probably talk a little bit more about that, but you know, half of the park is in the dark, so, you know, they have events throughout the daytime that are for people that are interested in astronomy and understanding the dark skies. The weekend gets kicked off with a free event here in Bicellia at the Fox Theatre. They'll be airing the movie a million miles away, and it's the story of the son of farm laborers here in the Central Valley who went on to become an astronaut. So it's a really inspiring story of his trajectory, I guess, to where he is today as a scientist and an astronaut. So that's a free event at the Fox Theatre on Friday, September 6th. So that should be an exciting kick off to the weekend. Holly can probably talk a little bit more about some of the activities that are happening up in the park to enjoy the dark sky and different exhibits throughout the park that people can explore, and it's all free at the pay of our commission, I believe. But the event itself is free, and all of the being able to look through the telescopes and talk with all the people, all of that is included in your price of admission. And by the way, get your admission at the gate. It helps the park directly. Actually, I think they want you to buy your ticket on your park passes online to help with getting people into the park right now. It's for a busy weekend like that, it's buying it in advance online, have it on your phone so you can just flash it when you get there and, yeah. Wow. So Holly, let's get into the park passes before we close the show, but tell us more about the dark sky first, because I really do want to revisit that with park passes because Christmas is coming, y'all, get your park pass for people. It's the best stocking suffer ever, right? So just do that. But anyway, go ahead, Holly. Tell us about the dark sky festival this weekend coming up, right? So starting September 6th this weekend. And if you can't make it and you're just hearing about it now, it's happening again next year. So let's tell us a little bit. That's right. And it's going through the 8th. So it's going through Sunday and there are all kinds of events happening all throughout the park. And a lot of it is kind of in our lodgepole area, lodgepole and giant forest. So our park partners, the Sequoia Parks Conservancy is really leading this event and they have a great agenda that everyone can see all of it online. It's actually at sequoiaparks conservancy.org and the dark sky festival agenda is laid out there. But they've got some great keynote speakers. They're going to have some telescopes up by the Wuxauci area so people can come out and kind of learn about what they're seeing, some information about the solar system, about photography. I know there's going to be a photographer there that can talk about astrophotography, I think it's called. So they've just got a lot of cool speakers and a lot of interactions and park rangers will be out there also to interact, bring your kiddos, bring your family. It should be a really nice time to just learn more about the skies and our universe. I know it's kind of humbling when you're looking at all those stars and then you start connecting them all and learning about them. It's like, wow, we're just a little speck on earth and then we feel like, yeah, but we're connected. That's what the parks do. It reminds us that we're connected or not just, you know, a speck in a mound of concrete. We do, right? We build all these things, you know, but when you go in the parks, it's just this humbling experience. But then it really reminds us that us humans are connected to this amazing universe that we have. So I love that about the skies. And so learning about the photography, I think everyone wants to learn that and our phones have done, I mean, our phones are getting better than regular cameras, right? I think at this point, our phones are doing some epic things that you're just like, what? You know, we can actually photograph the moon with the phone. Did you all think that when you were a kid, like seriously, that this would come to that, you know? It's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. So Holly, let's go to the park passes. So what, because we have all these different ways, I always like to bring this up because I think it's probably, especially for families, one of the most economical thing you can get as a family for travel and experience, education, if, you know, budget is tight, give your family a park pass for the year. Really? What would you say? Yeah, that's right. And there's actually several different pass choices that people can choose from. So you can get an annual pass, you can get a day pass, and that's good for a week here at Sequoia. Oh, that's cool. And then, of course, there are special passes for like our seniors, our military, and then fourth graders get a free pass for the year. So don't forget that if you have a little one. But we've been really happy that people have been buying their park passes in advance on recreation.gov because it helps get people into the park faster so they can start experiencing the park sooner. It keeps our lines from getting backed up. So if they have that park pass ahead of time on their phone, it just saves, I think, about three seconds per transaction or something like that. I can't remember, or three, I'm sorry, three minutes per transaction. And so all of that really adds up when you're having thousands of visitors a day, and it just moves that line a little bit faster so that people can get up into the parks instead of just idling their cars on the roadway. Oh, that's good for the environment then too, right? So yeah, because I know it also helps with park staffing and all of that, you know, getting things moving. So when we talk about using our phone, this is one thing I wanted to touch on too, and then we've got to go to Tulare because I know Cassidy's like, "Come on, y'all, we have a party happening." I'll get things to talk about there too. But using your phone for park passes and everything too, you have the park service really invested in creating an app for our phones that we can really use also for offline. So when we were talking about the wilderness area, can we get like the map of where we're going in the wilderness offline on our phone? Of course you can charge it by having solar or something, right? But you can. We've got solar backpacks and stuff. Yeah, they do have some great solar charging options out there, but definitely you can download the park map from the app, and that's really helpful whether you're in the park just for the day or out on a wilderness trip, because a lot of people lose cell phone service about five minutes into the park boundary. And so if you have that app ahead of time, then you can look at that to kind of see where you're going. Of course, printed maps are really great too. I know. So the wilderness, do you get printed ones too for when you go out in the wilderness? Yeah, so whenever you check in with our wilderness rangers, they'll do a check in with every group before they go out into the wilderness if the permit holder. And maps are available through our wilderness rangers and those offices. I look, I think I'm one of those. It's terrible. Every time I clean my car out, I find National Park Service maps everywhere. And some people have made coffee tables. I did all 63 parks and then a new park opens. They're like, I have to crack the potato open, the coffee table open, because they've like laminated everything into like, you know, you know, picture frames and everything, because we all collect those maps, you know, those maps and, you know, here's your visitor guide. And then when you look at them, it just reminds you of everything you experience. I know we've got our photos, but I mean, you guys give us this overview of the geology, the nature, the trails. I mean, it's awesome. So we all have those like, we want our maps. I know we shouldn't be taking so much paper, but we want them. Yeah. And I should add too, you do get a little map of the park as you enter the park, there's a map in the park planner. And so everyone will get that when they come through when you're in the wilderness wilderness, you might consider getting a more detailed map to. Yeah. You want that. Yeah, you do. You need to know. You need to know. Okay. Cassidy, I know you've got wine coming up. You've got a fair coming here. What's going on? Tulare is. Tulare is. It's harvest time. We're celebrating over here. We're having a, we have a lot of community get together. Our fair. It's fair time. Our fair starts on September 11th through September 15th here at the Tulare County Fair. It's a big deal here. And you can, I think tickets are already on top of that, or you can just get them at the box office here. We open that fair with a quilt of honor ceremony where we honor our veterans. Some veterans get nominated and we like to just shed light on them and all their hard work and what they've done for our country. So it's a really fun opening day, right? So we show up and we cut the ribbon. We honor the veterans and, and then we get to ride some rides and eat some good food a couple of weeks after that on October 11th, we have our crush party coming up and that's a fun event. It's a big wine and foodie event here. So if you're, you want to listen to some live music and kind of taste the San Joaquin Valley, we'll have over 50 vendors there, you know, just variety of food and drinks and you just pay your ticket and you can have as much as you want. And it's a good time. Did you just say we can pay our ticket and have as much as we want? It's a buffet style. You just walk around and, and you know, wine and tea. And whatever. And the Uber driver too, we want to be a driver after this event, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, no driving people. So this is really great. So people, like if you're not, if you're a visitor in town, you know, I know Donette always talks about going to community events as part of traveling. We do too, because you're meeting the locals and you're starting to find out what, you know, what is all these connections, like what, you know, who's what and where. And I think, you know, when you go to these kinds of events, it's really cool, but you, you have a ton of hotels in your backyard too, right? Mm hmm. We do. There's places to stay right down the road from the party if you wanted to. And then, you know, head into the parks the next day if you like, it's on a Friday night. So you could do that on a Friday night and then go spend the weekend exploring the surrounding area. Yeah. It's perfect. That's a good way to get your start. In fact, that means I may want to come in even a day earlier, because why not? Oh, it's got so I wanted to go back to you, Suzanne, tell us a little bit about the shuttle buses. Are they coming through still at this time of year? They just ended. Okay. Yeah. Liberty weekend was the last run. They'll start running again, Memorial weekend in next May and and usually about February, the tickets will go on sale to get the external shuttle. That's the one that picks up at the hotels along the 198 route into the park. And then there's an internal shuttle for anybody who is in the park that comes every 10 minutes or something like that. It's a free step on step off. That will operate during some of the like a holiday times like during Thanksgiving week or the week between Christmas and New Year's. The internal park will operate when crowds are a little bit bigger. So they might see it pop up sometime between now and next May at various times. So Holly, with fall being here, I mean, I know that you've just gone through probably the heavy part of the season for the park, right? Labor Day weekend is like, I remember doing Labor Day weekend at Mount Rainier and I went, what was I thinking? Because I left the park and tried to get back in and I was like, dude, you're never going back in. But fall, isn't this kind of one of those special times to get into the park? And you could even get a dusting of snow like out of nowhere, right? It could happen. Well, I would like to say that every time of the year is a great time to come in. I agree. I'm like, I'm just saying. But yeah. But yes, I'm with you when the when the temperatures start cooling a little bit. I'm really a big fan of layering, so I love bringing all my layers out and just kind of being out in the park as long as possible and, you know, it starts off cold in the morning and heat up. And it's just really nice time to be out there for all day. Whereas when you're in the heat, it can kind of get exhausting after a while. You have to pay attention to how you're doing with water. I mean, you always have to pay attention to how you're doing with water intake. But I think it's just a little more intense in the summer. So the fall is kind of a nice time to get out there and feel that crispness amongst the sequoias. A little less crowds, right? And a little less crowds, yeah. I would say that a lot of kiddos are back in school and families are back to their routines and being involved in sports activities and things like that. So it might be a little bit harder for them to get up into the parks. So today, what is the weather like for you all? Like is it warm, hot? I mean, it's still hot, isn't it? You're all laughing at me. Okay. All right. We're in a bit of a heat advisory that's starting this week. Okay. All right, so we're not even quite into fall. Fall starts, you know, later, but next time we talk, maybe we'll be different. Isn't that amazing? It might be like, oh, you're wearing a sweater. Does any of one know what it's like to wear a sweater, like, or jacket anymore? It's going to happen. It's going to be here. So everyone, if you go to DiscoverThisAqueias.com, that is the website and that will link you to all the parks and all the communities that are part of the Sequoia Tourism Council. Also, for the National Park Service, go to their website, nps.gov/seki. If you go there, they have a whole plan, your visit section where, you know, all the hikes are listed, the campgrounds, I mean, everything there. You can find out about every mammal, every reptile, every flower plant. I get stuck in the nps.gov site and it's dangerous because I sometimes forget to do a podcast because I'm like, look, they have marmots and they do. You love your marmots. But also go to tillarychamber.org and that is how you're going to find out more about what's happening in Tulary, the city of Tulary, not the whole county, but you guys kind of like to connect with everyone. They have a wonderful public art trail that you can follow, same as Visalia. I think, Suzanne, the whole Tulary county is like one big public art destination, I think. So if you like art, this, and we're looking at, you know, walking and shopping already, you know it before the holidays happen. Start now, go to all these wonderful downtowns, go to the shops, go to the galleries and get those unique things that don't get shipped online at like what everybody else has. I'm just saying. So this is the whole thing about going out and traveling. You get to really connect with everyone and get unique things. So Tularychamber.org and then visit Visalia.com, is that right, Suzanne, for Visalia? Cool. Awesome. Ladies, so much for joining us, as always, and keeping us posted on your beautiful California Sequoia country region. Always fun. I'm just jealous because I'm not right there, right now. And I always want to be there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us here on Big Blend Radio's California Sequoia Country Show. New episodes air every first Thursday at 4 p.m. Pacific time. You can keep up with the show at bigblendradio.com, but also plan your Tulary County Escape. Go to discover the sequoias.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]
