Kings Canyon and Grant Grove

These national parks involve a lot of driving. The roads are narrow, winding, and hilly/mountainous, with speed limits of 15-25 MPH. Grant Grove and the King Canyon visitor center is 2 hours from our cabin, and Kings Canyon itself is an hour further. The terrain is vastly different. The Grant Grove part of the park has some of the largest Sequoias in the world, and is lush, cool, and green. KC is a rugged, more arid valley more than a mile deep (deeper than the Grand Canyon). The Kings River is large and powerful, but looks tiny from the top. The western, more scenic, hikable, and more famous part of the canyon was closed. So we drove as far as we could, where there was a lovely waterfall at our turnaround point.

Near Grant Grove is Big Stump Trail, winding through forests and meadows to an area that was logged more than 100 years ago. There are several stumps of massive logged trees, a bit of a Sequoia graveyard. Very peaceful.

Fun fact: If the trunk on the General Grant tree was the gas tank of a car that got 25 mpg, you could drive around the earth 350 times.Read more