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Frustrations planning Sequoia & Kings Canyon trip

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SDKoala

M3LR RWD / MYLR
Apr 11, 2018
892
1,018
San Diego
I'm planning a multi-day trip from San Diego to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks in our MYLR and getting frustrated by the lack of charging infrastructure. Ideally, we'd stay in the parks (Wuksachi Lodge and John Muir Lodge) but neither has a level 2 charger and it's not clear if 110V charging is possible as it was in the past. There are Airbnbs outside the park entrances with EV charging ability but staying at one of those would mean adding an hour drive in and an hour drive out of the parks on slow, winding mountain roads for 3 days straight. With the family very prone to car sickness, I'd like to avoid that.

There's a lot of driving for Kings Canyon, so I don't see any way to make that part of the trip possible without staying outside the park at an Airbnb in the Dunlap area. Things are closer together in Sequoia, plus they have a shuttle system that we could use instead of driving. A Better Route Planner says I should be okay starting off with 100% in Dunlap area, getting to Wuksachi, driving around the sites, then getting all the way to the Tejon Ranch Supercharger with 20-25% remaining.

Has anyone done this trip? The posts/blogs I've found on going to the parks in a Tesla has been more about day trips than multi-day trips.
 
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I just got back from Sequoia with my MYLR. Charging had to be planned sort of. I stayed in an Airbnb in Three Rivers and the owner was kind enough to let us plug in on a 120v overnight which gave us enough charge to use the next day. Driving up to General Sherman and Moro Rock, we didn't go further than General Sherman though. We charged like 10% at the Gateway Destination Chargers at 11pm when we got back from a night excursion and then 120v overnight. The next day, went back in and exited the park at about 50%, drove not_slow and made it to Tejon Ranch with 6% (adjusting speed with the % going up and down).

But yeah let me know if you have any questions about staying outside the parks. It seems you want to stay inside, which makes total sense. Driving that windy road was kind of a pain.
 
Thanks both for your replies. If we can't get to Tejon Ranch after leaving the park, plan B is to backtrack to the Travers Supercharger or maybe use the level 2 charger at the Gateway Lodge in Three Rivers over breakfast/brunch. Planning this trip has shown me that as good as charging infrastructure has gotten over the past few years, there is still a lot of room for improvement. There are opportunities in the parks for level 2 chargers, which would alleviate these challenges.

@secprotocol, was driving in and out of the park via Generals Hwy really that bad? The regular posters on the TripAdvisor forums for Sequoia/Kings Canyon tell everyone to avoid staying in Three Rivers because of the drive. My original plan had us in an Airbnb in that area, but it sounded like the family wasn't going to tolerate the drive multiple times.
 
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Thanks both for your replies. If we can't get to Tejon Ranch after leaving the park, plan B is to backtrack to the Travers Supercharger or maybe use the level 2 charger at the Gateway Lodge in Three Rivers over breakfast/brunch. Planning this trip has shown me that as good as charging infrastructure has gotten over the past few years, there is still a lot of room for improvement. There are opportunities in the parks for level 2 chargers, which would alleviate these challenges.

@secprotocol, was driving in and out of the park via Generals Hwy really that bad? The regular posters on the TripAdvisor forums for Sequoia/Kings Canyon tell everyone to avoid staying in Three Rivers because of the drive. My original plan had us in an Airbnb in that area, but it sounded like the family wasn't going to tolerate the drive multiple times.

It isn't bad if no one suffers from motion sickness. The roads are pretty curvy climbing into the park. The good thing is, there isn't that much traffic, so most of the time you can just take your time and enjoy the drive. People are respectful in terms of pulling into the pullouts and letting people pass.
 
I've been looking at this trip for a while myself...

From Fresno area, you can charge and head into Kings Canyon from the North end of the park. 90% to 45% will take you to the lodge area. Once you go down the hill (leaving at 45%) it's a 12% drive to the Traver Supercharger, arriving around 30%.

This does not count for any overnight loss, or for side trips.

I did map out going to Crystal Cave, which surprisingly was only about 15 miles and reduced my arrival at Travar by about 5%.

I think if you planned the trip in a single direction, making sure to go off-course too much, you should be okay.
Also, the Gateway Restaurant and Lodge in Three Rivers is supposed to have a destination charger (for the price of a meal), but I have never used it myself.

If anyone does this trip, I'd love to hear feedback.
 
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I've been looking at this trip for a while myself...

From Fresno area, you can charge and head into Kings Canyon from the North end of the park. 90% to 45% will take you to the lodge area. Once you go down the hill (leaving at 45%) it's a 12% drive to the Traver Supercharger, arriving around 30%.

This does not count for any overnight loss, or for side trips.

I did map out going to Crystal Cave, which surprisingly was only about 15 miles and reduced my arrival at Travar by about 5%.

I think if you planned the trip in a single direction, making sure to go off-course too much, you should be okay.
Also, the Gateway Restaurant and Lodge in Three Rivers is supposed to have a destination charger (for the price of a meal), but I have never used it myself.

If anyone does this trip, I'd love to hear feedback.
How? Cedar grove lodge to crystal cave to traver supercharger is 139 miles, without crystal cave it’s 89.
 
I am doing this same trip from San Diego in July. My plan was to to stop for my last charge a Electrify America CCS Charger in Tulare at Walmart. After being in the park for two days hiking do the same thing on the return trip. This should give me enough charge to do a little side trip while in the park.
 
Post disappeared. Apologies if duplicate.

Does anyone have any experience driving north from SoCal taking CA-99 vs CA-65 after Bakersfield? Google Maps, Telsa trip planner, and ABRP all recommend the CA-65 route. It looks like CA-65 is mostly a 2-lane road, so I'm concerned about slow traffic making things take longer than necessary. ABRP says the time difference is negligible, but it will cost about 10% more in charge to go via CA-99.
 
I've made the trip to Sequoia multiple times from the LA area in my ICE car... have been planning a trip in our new MY so can share what I've found.

That said, you have 2 realistic choices for charging near Sequoia:
1) Charge in Three Rivers, right by the southern entrance to the park. The Gateway restaurant/hotel is right by the park entrance and seems to be a solid option to top up. Might not be a bad place to stay, so you can charge overnight and enjoy the park during the day.
2) Use the Traver Supercharger, which is a bit out of the way. This should enable you to use either park entrance.

CA-65 is a pretty good choice for a trip up to Sequoia from SoCal - it’s far more scenic than the 99 and on the times I’ve been on it, traffic goes pretty fast (not a ton of slow trucks). Probably similar time on either road but the CA-65 way is more pleasant. But CA-65 is only an option if you are OK charging at a slow destination charger in Three Rivers. Otherwise your only choice is to go up CA-99 to Traver and then head over to one of the park entrances.

Either way, keep in mind that the main areas of the park are a pretty good distance (and a steep climb) up from the Three Rivers entrance. Similarly, the road up to the Grant Grove entrance from the Central Valley is long-ish and steep so will eat up range. But at least you'll regain some on the way down.

Finally - Kings Canyon is amazing but you'd need to plan charging carefully, as it's pretty deep in the park. I think it's doable if you go straight there from the Traver supercharger, spend the day exploring the areas of the park on the road that leads to Kings, and then head back to the Traver Supercharger.
 
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John Muir you can use the market wall plug overnight, look at the SharePlug app , at Wuksachi Lodge 23 miles south is a restaurant with a level 2 16kW

We're staying at Wuksachi. Can you tell me more about that level 2 charger? There's nothing on PlugShare about it. When I search for it there's just some reports of a regular 120V outlet that may or may not be available.
 
We're staying at Wuksachi. Can you tell me more about that level 2 charger? There's nothing on PlugShare about it. When I search for it there's just some reports of a regular 120V outlet that may or may not be available.
So I just did my trip from pasadena to lodgepole sequoia. Had some mileage anxiety. Lol. I have a Model Y long range. Charged 100% before trip. Tesla had me do a mini charge so I can make it to traver . Drove my usual 80-85 mph with hitch/mtb bike on to traver. After 100% charge at traver I was worried about the trip up to lodgepole campgrounds so I was driving 50 mph or less. Got to campground with 51% battery. Going up the mtn with no AC on eats battery quick. After 2 days of car parked I came down mtn. Regenerative braking brought battery from 51% to 60% by the time I made it down the mtn… amazing. I didn’t want to backtrack that extra 30-40 RT to traver again so tried my luck at heading south instead of detouring. I ended up having to hit a Bakerfield 75 SC to give me enough juice to get to tejon 250 SC. Made it home from there going back to driving 80mph. It can be done. Visilia supercharger will be game changer.
 
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I'll update since I did this a few weeks ago. Made it up to our Airbnb in Badger, CA from San Diego with only one charging stop needed at Tejon Ranch. Charged to 100% at Tejon Ranch "just in case," which was more than enough. Our Airbnb had Level 2 charging ability, which let us leave at 100% for the part of the trip that I was concerned about most. From Badger, CA to Wuksachi Lodge via the Kings Canyon entrance left us with 65%. ABRP predicted we would get back to Tejon Ranch via the Sequoia entrance with 20% left, which didn't give us as much cushion as I would liked to drive around the sites at Sequoia.

Wuksachi Lodge does have Level 1 charging ability. An extremely helpful supervisor led us to the spot in a golf cart and gave us a ride back to the lodge. The current location is in employee housing, which is a two minute walk from the main lodge building. They used to let people use an outlet in the loading dock of the lodge (I saw a photo of this online somewhere and it was also in a guidebook I read), but the way people were parking would block the fire lane; the local fire department put an end to that recently.

They want to be able to offer this amenity for overnight guests of the lodge and asked that the specific location not be publicized to avoid daytrippers taking the spot. It's definitely a little hidden and not easy to find. There is room for only one car to charge. The Tesla Mobile Connector just barely reaches. Luckily, no other EVs needed the spot the two nights we were there (or maybe they did and we got there first). This gave us the extra miles needed to comfortably get around during the day without having to rely on the park shuttle system and not have to worry about detouring to the Traver Supercharger before heading back to SoCal. Without it, I'm sure we would have still made it, but with a bit more range anxiety than I would have wanted.
 
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I just did this trip last week in my M3LR. I stayed in Visalia the first night. I drove to Traver, did a full charge (288 miles) then back to Visalia. I drove to the three rivers restaurant that has two destination chargers. One was in use and the other would not work despite the staff doing multiple resets, cycling the breaker, etc.
I then drove to do some hikes (Moro Rock, Gen Sherman, etc) and then drove to find the trail head for the next day at Lodgepole. I stayed at Stoney Creek. The next day I drove back to Lodgepole, hiked, then drove to Gen Grant tree area and back out the North side to Traver.
This was just over 200 miles from Traver to Traver in a loop, no problem. However...
The Traver Superchargers were offline due to maintenance and since there is no connectivity up in the park I didn't notice this on the display.
I ended up going back to Visalia (per plan), drove around a bit and then would return later that night or the next day to charge. But then I realized I had enough battery to get to Kettleman City that was more on my way to Santa Barbara via Los Padres Forest.
I arrived in Kettleman City with 40+ miles remaining after driving ~280 miles!
When I left the Gen Grant tree I had 125 miles showing. I regen'ed going down and had 140 miles showing at one point. I got to Traver (with the powered off chargers) with 115 miles showing. Note that this was about 10 miles of battery used to drive about 58 miles with a ~6000 ft elevation drop.

Fun trip and way more worrying about range than needed.
 
After just returning from this trip yesterday in my MYLR. I have to agree with others that range is not an issue as long as you charge up before going into Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks (Lodgepole Campground - Upper Loop).

I will skip all the details of my drive from San Diego to my last charging location before entering the park. I charged in Tulare, CA at the Walmart CCS1 charger (Electrify America CCS 350 charger). Yes, I used a CCS1 adaptor to do this. My other option was to drive to Traver which was plan B if the Electrify America charges where not available (broken) or just to full. It is a busy location for other brands of EV's but my timing was perfect and I got a CCS 350 charger just as it freed up. My strategy for each location was to chart to 100% before heading to the park.

My objective was to do two days of camping and hiking from the Lodgepole Campground.

After, departing Tulare with a 98% charge I arrived at Lodgepole Campground with 57% charge remaining. I did not use my vehicle for two days due to all the walking and hiking we had planned (Falls Trail, General Sherman Tree trail, Monroe Rock Trail). In addition, if we did want to go somewhere else there are buses/shuttles that can get you around the major sites in the park even back to Visalia if needed.

When we were ready to leave we packed up and header down the mountain. On the way down I picked up 7% additional range from regen. which brought my battery charge to 65% battery. We headed for Tejon Range, CA - Outlets Super Charger. Arrived with 13% charge remaining and recharged to 95% before driving to Carlsbad, California arrived with 20% charge.

The trip was great and the experience was great too.
 
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First of all I want to thank this group for giving me the intestinal fortitude to trust my regenerative braking and give this a try:)

I wanted to try a loop through both parks from the new Selma Supercharger and this is what I experienced.

Stock 2020 MYLR with 39k on it. AC off. 2 persons.

100% at Selma Supercharger, 283 mi range, 308’ elev
60% at Kings Canyon gate, could literally watch the % points drop:(
56% at 7000’, Wuksachi Lodge, about halfway distance, no turning back now
54% at General Sherman tree, carefully kept under park speed limits 15/25/35
55% at Giant Forest Museum, about to drop 5000’ at 25 mph
62% at Sequoia Gate leaving the park for flat but gorgeous orange groves
48% at Selma Supercharger having driven 172 mi

I would never have guessed how well this would work. Speed limits really helped range. Regained 7% on the way down just like previous poster said.

Park was really worth it. Don’t miss Moro Rock. Strongly recommend. Saw about 4 other Teslas I think.

Curious if you think my 283 max range is typical for 39k?
Also, if you look close, you’ll see my Contisilents are done. Recommendations?
 

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