(bright acoustic music) - Sometimes traveling close to home can bring the same excitement and wonder of an adventure far away.

(cheerful music) We are excited about this one because we get to show you one of our favorite places.

On this one, we are in our backyard.

This is Eastern Madera County in Central California, and a place near and dear to our hearts.

Probably gonna be hiking down, around, and back up, but let's just go a little bit further here.

Here, the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada becomes a summertime playground with lush meadows.

Off the beaten path, streams.

Take one hit.

Fish on.

Oh, that's a good fish.

And my own mountain getaway to escape the grind.

Really excited to kinda show off one of the places we love.

Up here, I'm able to keep Zack's appetite at bay, while setting out to discover new back road secrets in places I've still never seen.

Oh, there's a huge pool down there.

Mosquitoes are out.

It's also a time to reconnect with an old friend who looks after some really old trees.

I see Brenda down here below.

She's coming up the trail.

A secluded grove of giant sequoias, where the crowds are small and the trees are huge.

I've never had a guided tour from you.

(Brenda laughs) And even though this is a place we've explored since we were kids... Yeah, that never gets old.

New discoveries can still be made.

Brenda, this one is amazing.

Clues of this lost grove's past lead to a better understanding of its rich history.

Okay, so they cut that one down.

They cut this one down.

But they left Bull Buck alone.

- [Brenda] Yes.

- [Jeff] You have the answer.

- I do have the answer.

- And a hike down memory lane connects us to memories of a place where generations have always come.

His Werther's butterscotch candy had to hold out.

- Yeah.

- For the length of the hike.

- Yes.

- Do you have any on you right now?

- I do not.

- What?

We spend a lot of time traveling around the world, and bringing you to incredible destinations through our lenses and beyond.

But right now, we get to showcase where our passion to explore was born in the curious minds of children that were blessed to grow up in a place like this.

Hey, while we're sitting here.

- Sure.

- I see this stump.

- (laughs) What stump?

- [Jeff] I can almost see through this stump.

- Yes.

- Right?

- Yes.

- [Jeff] There's something about this stump that you wanna tell me.

- There is.

So as a child, that was our fort.

So you can walk through that.

You can walk through that.

There's like a window seat.

- [Jeff] You ready to go?

- Yeah.

- [Jeff] Okay.

- Let's check it out.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

We gotta see the fort.

- Let's go.

- Okay.

Oh, are we going to the fort?

- [Jeff] Right now!

Yes!

Yes!

Okay, just don't trip.

When you travel, the world becomes a smaller place.

When you explore with friends that share a love of photography, destinations come to life.

Are you not entertained?

We tell the stories of travel with our cameras, capturing images of the most beautiful places on earth.

But every adventure reveals more than what's found in the frame.

The people.

(glasses clink) The food.

And the unexpected turns that happen on every journey... - You wanna go?

- No, he's going downtown on ya.

Hang on a second.

Brings the full experience of travel into focus.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Production funding for Outside: Beyond the Lens provided by Visit Fresno County.

Nature, diversity, found in the heart of California's Central Valley.

From Fresno and Clovis, you can drive to three nearby national parks.

By Hedrick's Chevrolet.

- Hedrick's Chevrolet is proud to support the spirit of travel in each of us.

Every journey has a first step.

Adventures start here.

- [Narrator] By Advance Beverage Company.

Serving Bakersfield and Kern County for over 50 years.

From our family to yours, supporting Valley PBS and the wonders of travel.

By the Penstar Group, promoting growth and opportunity in business through collaboration and partnerships for the future.

By Hodges Electric, serving California's Central Valley for over 50 years, and dedicated to supporting public television and the calling in all of us to explore.

And by Visit Yosemite Madera County, California's gateway to Yosemite National Park.

Explore the outdoor magic of Madera County and be inspired to discover more.

(soft music) (soft music) - These are the mountains where I spent much of my time as a boy.

It's where my love of exploring was born, and where I now, in the inevitable transitions of middle age, come home to recharge and reset.

These are the mountains of Eastern Madera County in Central California.

Not far from the southern border of Yosemite National Park.

It's a place that's been changed in recent years by wildfires, but still holds pockets of green where the pine trees stretch to the sky, and where an old cabin is a healing place for my family and friends to slow the pace of a busy life.

(soft music) Even though we know these mountains well, there's always something new to find right in our own backyard.

So we've set aside a few days to rediscover our home terf with a fresh set of eyes to capture the beauty of California's Central Sierra Nevada in camera.

We are excited about this one because we get to show you one of our favorite places.

We get to travel all over the world going to cool places, and showing them to you, but on this one, we are in our own backyard.

And specifically, we're in Eastern Madera County on a somewhat bumpy road right now.

Eastern Madera County and the Sierra National Forest is one of my favorite places on earth.

And we're gonna show off a little bit of it.

- Especially during the hot summer.

- Yeah, like right now- - You can cool off.

- Zack's right.

Down in the valley right now, in the San Joaquin Valley of California, you know, the last couple of days, it's been 107, 108.

(soft music) This section of Madera County is known for the Sierra Vista Scenic Byway.

It's an amazing loop drive through the heart of the Sierra National Forest we've featured before, and a place recently impacted by the Creek Fire in 2020, one of the largest wildfires in California's history.

(soft music) Today, we're exploring one of the many side roads near the byway that lead to hidden gems throughout the forest.

This is a place I've never really ventured into before, even though it's ridiculously close to my cabin.

After all these years, a new adventure so close to everything I know so well.

What's exciting about this is we're sort of exploring new parts of our backyard that... Dave hasn't even been here before.

- Nope, I have not been down here.

- So I'm gonna walk these guys to the edge, and then we're gonna make a plan about how to get into the creek 'cause right now, we're gonna be pretty high on an elevated granite dome looking down into it, so we'll go check it out.

That's a really pretty little scene right there.

Just in the middle of all this burn, there is just a little patch of green, a little spring or something right there.

There's a little bit of breeze blowing.

These trees have just gone through, well, two winters and some pretty gnarly wind.

So either they're strong enough to withstand for a while, or the heavy winds weaken them and they can go with the lightest of touch.

Which way do you wanna look at it?

I'm kind of a glass half full guy, so I'm gonna pick the they're tough enough to withstand.

Here, the creek still has some water in it, which is a big deal in California living under the effects of an extreme drought in midsummer.

Getting down to creek side takes a look over the edge, and then a plan that doesn't include falling off of it.

You coming, drone boy?

(Jeff laughs) (Jeff mimics buzzing) Pretty crazy.

Pretty crazy you're walking around in pretty much the middle of nowhere, but clearly, this is a popular spot where people have been here before.

Old signs of a fire ring right here.

(water babbles) We've walked back up canyon to find that large pool we saw from above.

And on closer inspection, we could see that it was loaded with trout.

(water babbles) (soft music) A spot like this isn't on the regular circuit of fishing holes up here, so my bet is the fish will be more than ready to bite.

(water babbles) There's a good little approach.

I can sneak in behind a bush.

A lot of people don't realize when you're fishing for trout, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains like this, and in still waters or pools like this, the trout can see you just as good as you can see them.

And if they see any movement on the bank, they'll scatter and they'll go under the shadows, or they'll hide to cover and they're less likely to bite your lure.

So I'm gonna sneak...

So really, trout fishing like this is half hunt, half fish.

It's kinda fun 'cause we're gonna try to go in here nice and slow and low and at least get two or three maybe we can get caught before that spooks the rest of them.

If we're going to catch a few, it's probably gonna happen on the first cast.

Take one hit.

- Fish on!

(acoustic music) I've got a lightweight rod and reel, and will be throwing a small spinner in this pool with the barbs on each hook crimped down.

Typically, the rainbow brook and brown trout found in these waters are on the small side.

And the barbs on the treble hook can really tear them up when you're planning on putting them back anyway.

(acoustic music) Oh, got one.

(acoustic music) All right.

So this one is a nice, another little brown, but he hooked it right in the bottom.

And I'm gonna be real careful to not knock the slime off of him.

(soft music) Oh, that's what happens.

They're slippery little dogs (laughs).

(soft music) With the sun beginning to set, Dave, Zack, and I decide to investigate some old logging roads we used to frequent in our younger days.

(soft music) This particular road is one I haven't been on since high school.

And it's eye opening how much the forest has changed here.

(soft music) In the early 90s, the lumber mills in the area were shut down in nearby towns like Oakhurst and North Fork, as environmental policies brought an end to logging in the area.

Since then, the forest has done a lot of growing up.

And with natural lightning caused fires that would normally clean the thick underbrush and unhealthy trees being put out by modern firefighting, combined with the killing of an industry that did a pretty good job of maintaining forest health on its own, the trees in the Central Sierra grew tall and thick.

Too thick, actually, for available groundwater to support them all.

The weakened trees starve for moisture, and as a result, unable to make sap, fell victim to a scourge of bark beetles that killed tens of millions of ponderosa and sugar pines across this forest.

(soft music) That chain of events, made worse with the changing climate, is why today these forests erupt into massive wildfires like the Creek and Railroad fires that blackened hundreds of thousands of acres on either side of this stretch of woods we're exploring tonight.

One of my favorite parts about the Sierra Nevada mountains and specifically, the Sierra National Forest up here above Oakhurst and Bass Lake, this is an area that I grew up, so I spent a lot of time here running all over this mountain, but I still love coming back here.

And especially in the summer months like this.

It's nice and cool up here.

We're 15 degrees cooler than down in the valley down below, but this part of the forest over here wasn't impacted by the Creek Fire, and you can still see, you know, behind me, you've got all this dead and down stuff laying here everywhere.

And this is what really makes the fire danger extreme when we get into the drier seasons like August, September, this stuff will start tender dry, that sun beating on it all the time.

And unfortunately, this forest is the next one to go.

Everything else is burned below on this side and above on the other side is already torched off, so here we'll enjoy this as long as we can.

And hopefully, we don't have to see this part of the forest burn too.

(upbeat music) Not far from the giant sequoias of Yosemite, another lesser known grove of these majestic redwoods grows in the Sierra National Forest on the lower part of the Sierra Vista Scenic Byway.

Nelder Grove is a place I've come to for years to walk beneath and enjoy the giant sequoias here, free of the crowds that visit Mariposa Grove just a few miles away.

One of my friends from way back, and her family before her, have been the caretakers of this grove for generations, and know the history and importance of this magical place better than anyone I know.

Okay, so we're at the interpretive center now, and I see Brenda down here below.

She's coming up the trail.

She is the expert here at Nelder Grove, and an old dear friend of mine who I'm so happy to see.

I went to high school with Brenda.

Yeah, how's it going?

Let's do a big hug first.

Hug on camera.

Say hi.

Say hi to the people.

This is a grove that not a lot of people know about, right?

- Right.

- [Jeff] So how long have you been... Tell me a little bit about your family history.

I know a little bit of it, but so the people can hear.

- Okay.

Well, the family history started with my grandparents, John and Marge Hawksworth, coming up to Nelder Grove, actually, right after they got married.

But they started hosting here when my grandfather retired from the Forest Service.

And so they were up here in 1970.

- [Jeff] These are giant sequoias, just like you...

The same species of tree that you see in Mariposa Grove just up the road in Yosemite National Park.

- Correct.

- We're going to go.

I wanna go look at Bull Buck tree.

One of my favorite trees growing up.

I'm curious about Bull Buck 'cause I haven't seen that tree since the fires.

And this area.

This area, did we have two fires here?

We had Railroad Fire, or was that the one that went through here?

- The Railroad Fire went through two thirds of Nelder Grove.

- And what year was that?

- 2017.

- 2017, so that tells you how long I haven't been here.

- Yeah.

- And I've been afraid to come in here.

Now, I tried to come in here two years ago, but we had a mono wind event.

- We did.

- And it just smoked trees.

I couldn't even drive in here.

It was hard to walk in here.

And then when I got close, I saw this old cabin was flattened.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I actually got upset to the point where I turned around and just left.

You know what that's like.

- I do.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- How was it to come up here and see this place flattened after that wind event?

That had to be emotional.

- Ugh, just gave me goosebumps.

- Yeah.

- I think I climbed up and over just from the gate to up here like 156 down trees.

(soft music) - [Jeff] The Railroad Fire took out 39 of these rare trees in 2017, leaving 60 mature sequoias today.

But a small section of Nelder Grove was spared from the flames entirely, including an area where Brenda's childhood memories run deep.

- This is my favorite thing.

You know, most of the flowers up here are pollinated by bees and such.

The columbine, if you kind of flip this over, do you see that?

See those little holes?

- [Jeff] Yes.

- Hummingbirds pollinate this one.

- [Jeff] From below.

That is really cool.

- It's just one of those things.

- [Jeff] It's been a pretty decent year for some of the flowers that we've been seeing.

Hey, while we're sitting here.

- Sure.

- I see this stump.

- (laughs) What stump?

- [Jeff] I can almost like see through this stump.

- Yes.

- Right?

- Yes.

- [Jeff] There's something about this stump that you wanna tell me.

- There is.

So as a child, that was our fort.

So you can walk through that.

You can walk through that.

There's like a window seat.

- [Jeff] You ready to go?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Let's check it out.

- Yeah.

We gotta see the fort.

- Okay.

- Let's go.

- Okay.

Oh, are we going to the fort?

- [Jeff] Right now!

Yes!

Yes!

Okay, just don't trip.

(soft music) Brenda's childhood here was something of a dream.

To have one of the most scenic locations on earth as your own play yard is a treasure not fully realized until now, when a lifetime of experiences, good and bad, put the gift of growing up in a place like the Sierra into perspective.

You and Beverly- - [Brenda] Yes.

- Your twin sister.

- Yes.

- [Jeff] Used to play in as little girls, which I think is so cool.

- And we didn't have all that debris here at the time.

- [Jeff] Yeah, this is a mess.

- [Brenda] So we didn't have that debris.

- [Jeff] Yeah, but- - So our entry way with a sequoia standing here.

- [Jeff] So you had this little sequoia going in.

Oh my gosh.

- Yeah.

- [Jeff] Look at this, David.

- And our window seat.

(Beverly giggles) - [Jeff] Oh my gosh.

- So we had a window.

We had exit points.

It was lovely.

- [Jeff] How crazy is this.

- [Brenda] Yeah.

- [Jeff] Looking straight in your roof.

You had the best skylight ever.

- [Brenda] Absolutely, yeah.

- [Jeff] Right in the middle of this burned out stump of a giant sequoia.

- [Brenda] Yes.

- That's pretty cool.

(Beverly chuckles) (soft music) Nelder Grove is a little over 1,500 acres just 13 miles north of Oakhurst, California.

There are no paved roads here, and with that, no crowds.

If you don't mind a little dust on your car, you can wander through this grove, just like Brenda and I are doing now, enjoying Nelder Grove all to ourselves.

Are you still like the host of the grove?

Do you still do that?

- Well, I'm not a campground host officially anymore, but when I can, I do come up and... Well, like I was telling you, I think, Memorial weekend, July 4th, weekends that I think are gonna be really busy.

- Yeah.

- Take after my grandparents (laughs).

- Good for you.

- They were great hosts.

My grandmother, she always had coffee.

Always, when people came up, she had coffee.

My grandpa, they would chat.

If my grandpa wanted to go out into the forest to go study something, go with a photographer somewhere, or whatever it was- - Yeah.

- My grandma would say, "How many..." My grandpa liked those Werther candies.

- Yep.

- And so, "How many do you need?"

And that would give my grandma an idea of how long they'd be away.

- 'Cause his Werther's butterscotch candy had to hold out.

- Yeah.

- For the length of the hike.

- Yes (laughs).

- I love those too.

- They're just kind of funny.

- Those are delicious.

- They were great.

Yeah.

- Do you have any on you right now?

- I do not.

- What?

- I don't.

I have granola bars.

That's all I have right now.

- (clicks tongue) Not the same.

- Not the same.

(soft music) - Brenda has led us to a giant sequoia that has somehow remained hidden from me on every single visit I've made to Nelder Grove over the last 40 years.

A tree she calls the Mr. Bill tree.

- This is what I've been looking forward to showing you.

- So you're telling me, I've missed this little spur trail for all these years.

- For all these years.

- All right, after you.

- All these years.

- After you.

- I look forward to showing you.

- On to the Mr. Bill tree.

Okay, so we're jumping off the main trail here.

How have I never seen this?

(Brenda laughs) 'Cause I haven't taken a hike with Brenda.

(Brenda laughs) Master of the forest.

- But see how it kinda comes in- - Oh, yeah.

- And it kinda holds you.

- Well, we're in this tunnel of dogwoods.

It's really, really cool.

- Right.

And this is where like little kids and families that bring their kids up here because it's this little like fairy grove.

- Oh, yeah.

This is beautiful.

- More magical as you get closer.

- [Jeff] I always love walking under these dogwoods.

- [Brenda] Yeah.

Especially when they're blooming.

- [Jeff] Oh my gosh, the creek is right here.

- [Brenda] When you look at the light through the trees too.

- [Jeff] Yeah, that never gets old.

- [Brenda] It doesn't.

- [Jeff] Looking up at that light filtering through those dogwoods, look at that.

- [Brenda] Yeah.

- [Jeff] Beautiful.

(soft music) - So- - Oh my gosh.

- What do you think of Mr. Bill?

- Oh my gosh.

Brenda, this one is amazing.

- And you see his personality, right?

- [Jeff] He's got like a little face and a mouth.

- Yeah.

- [Brenda] And so over there, you can see where the original undercut was.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- How over the last 10 or 20, 30, you know, whatever it's been years, it will eventually given time completely cover that hole.

But right now, we have Mr. Bill saying, "Oh, no."

It's Mr. Bill (laughs).

(Jeff laughs) And he's right there.

- [Jeff] He is right there.

- Normally when I give tours- - [Jeff] That's great.

- And I know I'm coming here, I bring that little Mr. Bill, the little bendable guy.

- [Jeff] Yeah, the little toy from... Wasn't that from Saturday Night Live?

- It's Saturday Night Live, yeah.

Yeah, so I bring that with me normally.

- Oh, man.

- I didn't bring it today.

I don't know why I didn't.

But anyhow, Mr. Bill.

(soft music) - [Jeff] Not far up the trail from the Mr. Bill tree, one of the most popular and easy to get to giant sequoias in Nelder Grove is found.

It's a tree I've been coming to visit since I was a boy, and a sight that still amazes me after all of these years.

Bull Buck is a massive giant sequoia, nearly 3,000 years old, close to 100 feet around at its base, and stands almost 250 feet tall.

One of the things I've always wondered about at the Bull Buck tree, and I have loved the Bull Buck tree.

I've been coming to this tree ever since I was a kid, and it's just...

It's such a distinctive tree.

But here's what I'm wondering.

My question is always like, "Okay, so they cut that one down.

They cut this one down.

But they left Bull Buck alone."

- [Brenda] Yes.

- [Jeff] You have the answer.

- I do have the answer.

Actually, there are seven stumps here.

There's five more behind it.

The real reason is the bigger these trees are, the harder they fall.

It also means it takes longer to cut down.

This tree could've taken two to three weeks.

Maybe three weeks.

- [Jeff] Oh, I get it.

- To take down.

- [Jeff] So if that big of a tree, when it would hit the ground, it would splinter.

- Then it splinters and shatters.

Kinda like what you actually see here.

- [Jeff] Oh, yeah.

This old ancient stump.

They cut this one down.

Now, that one, I'm guessing came from this stump over here.

- Mm-hmm.

- [Jeff] So when this one was cut down, just like we saw before, that's the remnants of the top of the tree, and they took this section in between.

- Yeah.

- [Jeff] Wow.

That's fascinating.

- But this one, too long.

It's very heavy.

It would break up.

It wasn't worth their time.

Thankfully, that's why the Bull Buck is still here.

(soft music) - [Jeff] If you've never seen a giant sequoia tree up close, never walked in a quiet grove of them in a place like this, then a visit to Nelder Grove in California is a must-do.

(soft music) These ancient giants started growing here thousands of years ago, and still remain today after so much change and evolution in these mountains.

But the changes we've made to how these forests naturally care for themselves, and how we've blocked man-made ways to care for these lands as a result have led to conditions on the forest floors of the west that we see today.

(soft music) Our mistakes in an attempt to protect the environment have led to a place in time where wildfires are the only way to balance the sheet.

In the end, nature always wins.

And the checkmate move for her now as we fight and debate over how or if to manage these lands can only be this.

(soft music) To lose another one of these giants because we can't all figure this out together would be the ultimate betrayal of these lands.

- [Narrator] Production funding for Outside: Beyond the Lens provided by Visit Fresno County.

Nature, diversity, found in the heart of California's Central Valley.

From Fresno and Clovis, you can drive to three nearby National Parks.

By Hedrick's Chevrolet.

- Hedrick's Chevrolet is proud to support the spirit of travel in each of us.

Every journey has a first step.

Adventures start here.

- [Narrator] By Advance Beverage Company serving Bakersfield and Kern County for over 50 years.

From our family to yours, supporting Valley PBS and the wonders of travel.

By the Penstar Group, promoting growth and opportunity in business through collaboration and partnerships for the future.

By Hodges Electric, serving California's Central Valley for over 50 years, and dedicated to supporting public television and the calling in all of us to explore.

And by Visit Yosemite Madera County, California's gateway to Yosemite National Park.

Explore the outdoor magic of Madera County and be inspired to discover more.

(soft music) (upbeat music)