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Kings Canyon National Park

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are two great national parks in the Sierra Nevada mountains that share a boundary. While Sequoia, with its Giant Sequoia trees, is the more visited park, the drive down into Kings Canyon is not to be missed.

California

2007, 2014

About The Park

The National Park Service basically treats these two parks virtually as one extended park which it basically is. They are adjacent to each other and the typical National Park Service brochure is for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

Both of these parks are only about a 3 ½ hour drive from Yosemite National Park which makes it convenient to do all three parks on one trip. The last two times that we went to Yosemite we worked in a few days at Kings Canyon and Sequoia.

If you come in from the west on California highway 180 you’ll enter at the aptly named Big Stump entrance. The road then becomes the Generals Highway and you are in a relatively small section of Kings Canyon National Park which is separated from the rest of Kings Canyon National Park by the Sequoia National Forest. If you take a left at the fork ahead it will take you to the Kings Canyon Visitor Center.

If you were to take a right at the fork and drive south along the Generals Highway you will run into the sign that says Sequoia National Park.  That’s all that separates them.  In addition you have the Sequoia National Forest which is adjacent to both of these parks and if you’re not paying attention you’re not even sure which of these three you are in.
 
The main road for both parks is the Generals Highway, and it goes through both parks. It is almost impossible to visit either park without setting foot in the other.

So, if you are planning a visit to Kings Canyon you should also visit the page for Sequoia National Park on this website.

The most distinctive feature of Kings Canyon National Park is its extremely impressive canyon which is about as deep as the Grand Canyon (although nowhere near as large).  Oddly enough, despite its proximity to Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park is one of the least visited parks in the system. It gets approximately 600,000 visitors which is about half of what Sequoia gets. By contrast Yosemite gets about 5 million visitors and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, due to its central eastern location, gets about 9 million visitors. As a result you have less traffic and less crowded trails to hike on.

From the Kings Canyon Visitor Center, to actually get down into the canyon, you drive about 30 miles through the Sequoia National Forest and descend about 3,500 feet down a steep mountain road with beautiful views that you want to see during the day because you really don’t want to be driving that road at night.

Down near the bottom of the descent at the beginning of the Canyon was a café with a pair of operational 1928 gas pumps.  They are gravity driven which means that the tanks are up at the top of the canyon and there’s a pipe that goes down to the pumps. This makes sense because taking a gas truck down that road would not be something that anyone would want to do. As you might expect the gas was rather expensive; I don’t recall the price but it was several dollars a gallon more than gas was selling for at a normal gas station. I wanted to see it operate so I bought a couple of gallons and took some pictures.

The road through the canyon runs about 10 miles and parallels the left fork of the Kings River.  The canyon is steep and narrow, carved by glaciers, and beautiful. You don’t actually reach Kings Canyon National Park part until you are practically at Cedar Grove Village. You’ll see the usual Kings Canyon National Parks sign which tells you that you are in the park but you will have been driving through Kings Canyon as you follow the Kings River. The road ends about 10 miles further on.

Most of Kings Canyon National Park (and Sequoia National Park) are wilderness which is the case with most national parks. You get to see the most dramatic parts that were where roads were built and lodging constructed.

 
Boynton Cave

Located down in the canyon Boynton Cave is worth visiting. They have tours and you see the usual stalactites and stalagmites and interesting formations. If you’re down in the canyon in the heat of summer a trip to a cave can be a pleasant respite from the heat.

Wildlife

Mule deer, Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, mountain lions, bobcats and black bears, and the usual bird and reptile species. The Park Service is involved in restoring the population of bighorn sheep.

Lodging

Cedar Grove Lodge

The Cedar Grove Lodge is the only lodge down in Kings Canyon. It is about 4 miles from the end of the road down in the canyon. It sits on the banks of the Kings River and, while the lodge is more rustic than other lodging in these parks, the locale more than makes up for that difference. The restaurant is also a step down from the restaurant at Grant Grove; you do your ordering at a window with more limited dining choices, but the food was good and, given where we were, we had no complaints.  National parks are about the scenery and wildlife. Food and lodging can run the gamut. Cedar Grove is only open from Spring to Fall since the road down is closed in winter.

John Muir Lodge

There’s lodging at the John Muir Lodge which is at the top of the canyon near the western entrance to the park. We stayed there on one trip and found the rooms to be modern and very nice. The restaurant is a short walk from the lodge buildings.

There are cabins at Grant Grove.

Basically, with the exception of the Cedar Grove Lodge down in Kings Canyon, any lodging along the Generals Highway is fine for touring either or both of these parks.

Kings Canyon Lodge

The Kings Canyon Lodge (and cafe), which was located down in the canyon, unfortunately was a victim of the California wildfires in 2015 and was a total loss. All that survived were the 1928 gas pumps.

Hiking

Grizzly Falls and Roaring River Falls

These two trails are located along the road down in the canyon and lead to two nice waterfalls. Both are just short walks from the road.

Zumwalt Meadow

There’s a nice hike around Zumwalt Meadow.  It’s a fairly flat hike and easy to do with beautiful scenery. At one point as I came around a very large garage-sized boulder I caught sight of a black bear running off into the forest having heard me coming his way. We could tell that he was heading down toward the river so we made our way down there and sure enough a little ways downstream we could see the bear foraging. We watched it for a bit, took some pictures, and continued our hike.

Copper Creek Overlook trail

At the end of the road there’s the Copper Creek Overlook trail. The hike headed up a long series of switchbacks to an overlook.  The views were great but it was a hot day and all that climbing up switchbacks was kind of tiring. We rounded the turn of a switchback and as we started walking up my wife told me there’s a bear up ahead. Not certain she was right I took out my camera and took a few steps forward. Sure enough there was a bear and I noticed some movement behind her which I soon saw were two cubs. I also saw the bear turn in a defensive posture and take a step in my direction - which told me to stop and back up.

My wife and I backed down the trail a bit and out of her sight. I thought it best to just sit there and wait, make some noise, and give her time to leave with her cubs. My wife had had enough of the hike and wasn’t in any mood to sit and wait. She was determined to walk down. My sentiment was that if this bear was cutting the switchbacks, on the way down that we had to travel, it would leave us with a good chance of running into her again. As my wife was walking fast and singing loudly sure enough there was mama bear, cutting the switchback, with her two babies right behind her. We walked right by her and her two soccer ball sized cubs. I would’ve loved to have had my camera in my hand and click the picture as we walked by, for she was no more than 12 to 15 feet away, but she was in a ready-to-strike position so I just kept walking quickly. Fortunately, that was the last we saw of her. With her cubs to worry about I’m sure she wanted no more of us than we wanted of her and headed back up or off to the side instead of continuing down.

Panoramic Point

Not far from Grant’s Grove, at the top of the canyon, there is a nice little drive and hike up to a place called Panoramic Point.

Lookout Peak

There’s also a nice hike to Lookout Peak. The trailhead is reached via a graded road past a grandfathered-in ranch in Sequoia National Forest. Lookout Peak overlooks Kings Canyon.

North Grove Loop

Across the road from the Kings Canyon Visitor Center is the North Grove Loop. This is an easy 1.5 mile trail that gets you close to the big trees without the crowds.

General Grant Tree Trail

The General Grant Tree Trail is an easy, paved, 1/3 mile trail that shares the same Grant Tree parking area.

Buena Vista Peak trail

Another relatively easy 2-mile round trip hike that we took was the Buena Vista Peak trail.  It is about 6 miles southeast of Grant Grove Village. The 360 degree view overlooks the Sequoias in Redwood Canyon. You can also take short walks or day hikes into Redwood Canyon which is one of the largest of the Sequoia groves.

Kings Canyon National Park Photo Gallery

Other Resources

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks on the National Parks Service website - NPS.gov

Kings Canyon National Park - Wikipedia

Sequoia National Parks - Wikipedia

Lodging in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park

Other National Parks Within a Day’s Drive

Sequoia National Park with its massive sequoia trees is adjacent to Kings Canyon National Park.

Yosemite National Park home of Yosemite Falls and El Capitan is about 235 miles to the north.

Death Valley National Park the hottest place on Earth is about 90 miles to the southeast as the crow flies. Unfortunately the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range lies between these parks and there is no easy way across it. That makes the trip a long 375 mile drive.
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Updated 02/11/23 7:04 PM

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