After several hiking fails to get this track off the list as a family, we were finally set up and ready to explore. We had invited a good friend and her son along for the trek up the hill to keep motivation in the younger folks. Parking was ample and the sun was out. Not just out, but it was getting to be quite a hot day with a very warm wind blowing in from the north. With Sequoia in a backpack and the two young boys in tow, we started up the very steep incline though the cloud forest. It really is a very unique forest with all the New Zealand Ceder and fern trees. I was once told of a huge fire that swept though these forests and left only a few old growth trees standing. You can see the dead trees still sticking out of the forest canopy.