We spent Christmas in Lone Pine. It was the first Christmas that we spent that was just the two of us… or the fur of us since the kitties were there, too.

This was the first year that we spent the holiday without either of our families. We FaceTimed with my family and part of us wished we could have been there to celebrate the holiday in person, but we were thankful to at least see them via video chat.

Ryan and I decided to spend the day exploring Sequoia National Park. It seemed fitting as we knew that there would be snow and even though we plan to run from the snow along our journey, we decided to embrace it on the holiday.

Who wouldn’t want to have a White Christmas?

It was great, too, because we weren’t stuck with the snow. We could just enjoy it for a short time and then leave it behind when we had enough of the cold.

To get to Whitney Portal Road, the road that would take us up the mountain to Sequoia NP, we had to drive past Alabama Hills. Driving through the desert-like region with low-mid 50 degree weather, knowing we were heading towards a below freezing area was interesting.

It was only about a 5 minute drive uphill from the desert to the snow. It’s amazing how the elevation changes the climate so drastically, so quickly.

As we drove up the mountain, driving along the rim, we were in awe of the view before us.

On the right hand side, we had the partially snowy mountains standing tall above us. We could see that as the elevation increased, the amount of snow increased as well.

On the left hand side, we gazed down at the valley below that consisted of the rocky, desert-like terrain, that had quickly became a favorite destination of ours, Alabama Hills.

It was fascinating to see the differences in climate and scenery. Two drastically different landscapes were sitting in such close proximity of one another.

As we ascended the mountain, the road quickly turned to ice and we were surprised at how little distance we had covered before we encountered a slick spot that had us reconsidering our plans.

I’m used to driving on snowy, icy terrain, however the road was so slick, it was challenging to control the one ton vehicle I was operating. Smaller cars seemed to pass by without difficulty. We were, however, slipping and sliding on the road with minimal control. Despite pumping the brakes, I was struggling to stop the truck, as it was having difficulty getting traction due to slippery ice.

We had purchased snow chains for this particular reason, however as we attempted to donn the device, we quickly realized that they were too small. Apparently, before ordering them, we were supposed to measure the size of the tires… WHOOPS!

Since we didn’t have adequate gear for safe travel, we decided not to continue along the road. We weren’t sure how much worse the ice would get or if the road would become increasingly narrow as we continued along the route. When I was able to stop the truck, we were right next to a campground so we had a good location for a safe turn around, we thought it best to play it safe.

We still wanted to explore this area, so we parked the truck on the side of the road next to the Whitney Portal Campground and traveled on foot. We wandered around the grounds, traversing logs to cross the icy stream, just enjoying being the only 2 people in the area.

I particularly found the pine cones interesting. They are huge! I couldn’t believe it. I have never seen one so large.

Down in the valley, we could easily see the rock formations in the Alabama Hills with the mountain with the Death Valley mountain range way out in the distance.

We continued our descent towards Alabama Hills and decided to stop once more for to hike along the Arch Loop Trail. It was a short hike, less than 1 mile, I believe, but it was a perfect way to end the day. As we gazed at the intriguing arch loop rock before us with the Sequoia mountain range in the background, we watched the sun slowly descend as the day was coming to an end.

We planned on packing up and heading out to our next destination the next morning, so we took our time enjoying our favorite location. We had a great time in this area and have been discussing plans on when to return ever since we left.

Next time we come back to this part of California, we plan to camp on the BLM land so that we are surrounded by this beautiful scenery the whole time we are there. We cannot wait for that day!