Sequoia National Park

Sequoia and Kings Canyon: Trees That Make You Recalculate Scale

The General Sherman Tree in the Giant Forest is the largest living organism on earth by volume: 52,500 cubic feet of wood, 84 metres tall, and approximately 2,100 years old. The comparison rangers use in interpretive talks – the equivalent of 15 blue whales, a tree trunk wide enough to park two cars inside – do not fully resolve the experience. Standing next to it, the scale doesn’t register properly until you look up and cannot find the top.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks share a border in the southern Sierra Nevada and are jointly administered, but they are different experiences. Sequoia is about the trees. Kings Canyon is about the canyon, a granite gorge deeper than the Grand Canyon at its lowest point, carved by a river that ran here during ice ages of different configuration. The two parks are worth treating as a combined destination rather than choosing between them.

The Giant Forest

The Congress Trail is a 2-mile paved loop from the General Sherman trailhead that passes Sherman and several other enormous sequoias including the President, the Senate Group, and the House. It takes about an hour at a moderate pace and the density of massive trees per mile is higher here than anywhere else on earth. Trails branch off into deeper, less-visited groves if you have time.

The Giant Forest Museum at the trail start has the best single explanatory fact about sequoias: they need fire to reproduce. Their cones stay closed for up to 20 years, sealed by resin, and open only when heat causes the resin to vaporise. Prescribed burning has been part of sequoia grove management since the 1960s.

Kings Canyon

Cedar Grove is reached via a dead-end road that drops 2,600 feet from the rim into the canyon. The road closes in winter, opening roughly May through November. The canyon floor along the South Fork of the Kings River is where most hiking originates. Zumwalt Meadow, a 1.5-mile loop through meadow and along the river with canyon walls rising on three sides, is the most accessible trail and one of the better short walks in the Sierra Nevada.

For longer trips, the Rae Lakes Loop is approximately 42 miles of backcountry requiring a permit and providing Kings Canyon scenery at depth – white granite, clear river, forest – comparable to Yosemite without the crowds. The Kings Canyon Road Terminus viewpoint alone, reached without hiking, shows why the canyon comparison to the Grand Canyon is appropriate.

Practical Notes

The Generals Highway connecting the two parks closes in winter between Lodgepole and the Giant Forest; winter access is from the south entrance only. Park entry fee is $35 per vehicle, covered by the America the Beautiful annual pass. Elevations range from about 1,300 to 4,400 metres across the parks; altitude affects exertion in August heat.

Wuksachi Lodge in Sequoia is the main in-park accommodation and fills months ahead in summer. John Muir Lodge in Kings Canyon’s Grant Grove is an alternative. Visalia, 55 kilometres from the Ash Mountain entrance, has the full range of commercial accommodation and is a practical base for the parks. Cell service is minimal inside both; download offline maps before arrival. There is no gas available inside the parks beyond Grant Grove Village in Kings Canyon – fill up in Three Rivers before entering Sequoia.