Sequoia National Park

Sequoia and Kings Canyon: The Trees and the Canyon

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks share a border in the southern Sierra Nevada and are administered together, but they’re quite different in character. Sequoia is about the trees. Kings Canyon is about the canyon — a granite gorge deeper than the Grand Canyon at its lowest point.

The General Sherman Tree

The General Sherman tree in the Giant Forest is the largest living tree on earth by volume: 52,500 cubic feet of wood, 275 feet tall, and around 2,100 years old. The comparison to sports stadiums or blue whales used in ranger talks is not exaggeration. Standing next to it, the scale doesn’t fully register until you look up and can’t find the top.

The Congress Trail is a 2-mile paved loop through the Giant Forest that passes Sherman and several other enormous sequoias, including the President and the Senate Group. It’s a reasonable commitment — about an hour at a moderate pace — but the concentration of massive trees per mile is higher here than anywhere else. Trails branch off toward deeper, less-visited groves if you have time.

The Giant Forest Museum at the start of the Congress Trail has good exhibits on sequoia ecology. The key fact worth knowing: sequoias are fire-adapted and need fire to reproduce; their cones stay closed for up to 20 years until heat opens them. The park has active prescribed burning programmes.

Kings Canyon

Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon is reached via a dead-end road that drops 2,600 feet from the rim. The road closes in winter and opens roughly May through November depending on snowpack. The canyon floor along the South Fork of the Kings River is where most of the hiking originates. Zumwalt Meadow, a 1.5-mile loop through the 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 goes into the backcountry for about 42 miles and requires a permit. The Kings Canyon scenery at depth — white granite, clear river, forest — is comparable to Yosemite without the crowds.

Practical Details

The Generals Highway connects the two parks but closes in winter between Lodgepole and the Giant Forest area. Access in winter is from the south entrance only. The park entrance fee is $35 per vehicle (covered by America the Beautiful pass). The parks are at elevations between 1,300 and 4,400 metres; altitude affects exertion levels, particularly in August heat.

Wuksachi Lodge in Sequoia is the main in-park lodging and is reliably full in summer — book months ahead. John Muir Lodge in Kings Canyon’s Grant Grove is an alternative. Visalia, about 55km from the Ash Mountain entrance, has the full range of commercial accommodation options and is a practical base.

Cell service is minimal inside both parks. Download offline maps. Gas is not available inside the parks; fill up in Three Rivers (Sequoia) or at the Grant Grove Village (Kings Canyon) before going further in.