Hiking Elopement – Chasing Giant Sequoias in Yosemite NP

April 28th, 2023. This day was supposed to be spent in Sequoia National Park. Walking around amongst the biggest trees on this planet. But nature had other plans for us. What would’ve been a very chill day, ended up turning into a hardcore hiking elopement (almost a snowshoeing elopement for that matter)! And it was 100% worth it.

J+C are tree lovers. When asked about why they decided to elope their answer was so inspiring:

“Nature makes the best witness for our wedding! Giant trees, mountains, and rivers have been here long before we were on this earth & will be here long after we are gone.”
Jordan & Collin

You see why their original elopement location was Sequoia National Park, home of some of the oldest and biggest trees on this Earth.

The winter in the Sierras in 2023 was completely extreme. Record snowpack got us out of the drought, but unfortunately, also brought quite a bit of damage. Sequoia NP announced that there would be no access to the big trees for a while, and so Plan B began.

These two came all the way from Washington, DC to elope, so we didn’t want to mess with their plans too much. Luckily for us, Yosemite was already on the itinerary!

We started scouting for accessible locations with giant Sequoias. It wasn’t an easy task, let me tell you. With most of those groves located at 6,000 + feet of altitude, the snowpack made things much harder.

Snowshoeing was a possibility, but it turned out we ended up just needing crampons on our hiking shoes! This hike isn’t strenuous, but when you’re walking on 10 feet of snow at 6,000 ft of altitude, things are a lot more challenging. Thankfully the 3 of them were super excited about a hiking elopement!

It was about 34 degrees when we pulled up in the parking lot and actively snowing. Yes, at the end of April! Braving the cold got us a massive reward…

Privacy.

During their ceremony, we saw no one.

Not a single person.

And Jordan & Collin’s dream came true. Their only witnesses were the trees, and the sound of the river running near us was the only thing they could hear.