Pinecones are roasting on a red hot fire, turning black then disintergrating into white feathers. Watching the orange touches lick charred wood, I think Sequoia is a world of orange and green. Orange tree trunks, poppies and the leaves of dead pine trees, green moss, almost fluorescent spring leaves, grass and pine needles. At the moment too the sky mirrors the grey rock strewn ground near our new campsite in the mountains.

After rambling in the foothills amongst wildflowers and blue sky we ascended the mountain and the clouds rolled in. It had been peaceful by the river, but pawprints on the dirt path conjured up images of mountain lions prowling and we considered that sign enough to chose a new adventure. Thunder boomed silencing chatter for a moment as we approached General , over 2,000 years old he stolidly disappeared into the canopy, the biggest tree in the world. Its base gripped the earth like a half dozen giant cat paws, anchoring the shallow rooted Sequoia from the fate of its forebears toppling to their doom. Between two of these knobbly paws was a little hollow, the entrance, we imagined, to a magical land: Narnia perhaps or the land of the Faraway Tree. We picniced beneath his branches then wandered the forest until the mountain chill called us campward.