Kings Canyon National Park

Kings Canyon National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Kings Canyon is the northern half of the twin Sierra Nevada parks that the National Park Service runs as one, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, an hour and a quarter east of Fresno and four and a half hours from Los Angeles or San Francisco, and almost nothing is sold for it on its own. The few tours are private day trips from Los Angeles or Fresno that cover both parks in one very long day, the General Sherman tree and Moro Rock in Sequoia and the General Grant grove in Kings Canyon, without time to descend into the canyon itself; the name also belongs to a canyon in central Australia, a park in Perth and a hockey team, which accounts for most search results. This is a park for a rental car and two or three days.

One entrance fee, per vehicle for seven days, covers both parks. The Big Stump entrance on Highway 180 leads in a few minutes to Grant Grove village, with the visitor centre, a lodge and cabins; from there the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway runs fifty kilometres down into the canyon to Cedar Grove and Road's End, open only from about late April or May to mid-November. Lodging inside is limited to Grant Grove and the small Cedar Grove lodge, campgrounds are reserved on the federal booking site, and wilderness permits for the backcountry, including the famous Rae Lakes loop, are rationed by quota in summer. There is no fuel in the park, and the Generals Highway to Sequoia can require chains in winter.

Visiting Kings Canyon National Park: what you will see

The park began in 1890 as General Grant National Park, four square miles set aside to save a sequoia grove from the saws a week after Sequoia itself, and was enlarged and renamed in 1940 by Franklin Roosevelt after a campaign in which Ansel Adams's photographs were carried to Washington; the floor of the canyon at Cedar Grove and the Tehipite valley were added only in 1965, after half a century of proposals to dam them. It covers 1,869 square kilometres, nearly all of it roadless wilderness. Grant Grove holds the General Grant tree, the second largest tree on earth by volume, about 81 metres tall and 1,650 years old, named the nation's Christmas tree in 1926, on a short paved loop with the Fallen Monarch, a hollow log once used as a stable, and the Gamlin cabin; nearby Big Stump basin shows what the loggers left, and Redwood Mountain, shared with Sequoia, is the largest sequoia grove in existence.

The byway then drops to the South Fork of the Kings river, whose canyon, measured from the summit of Spanish Mountain to the confluence outside the park, is more than 2,400 metres deep, deeper than the Grand Canyon; inside the park at Cedar Grove it is a glacial valley in the manner of Yosemite, which John Muir called its rival, with granite walls a mile high, the domes of North Dome and Grand Sentinel, Roaring River and Grizzly falls, the meadow loop at Zumwalt and the river trail from Road's End to Mist Falls. Beyond the road lies the High Sierra: the John Muir and Pacific Crest trails run the length of the park over passes above 3,600 metres, past Evolution valley and the Rae Lakes, under peaks of more than 4,300 metres along the Palisades, with the last glaciers of the range. Black bears, mule deer, marmots, pikas and the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep live here; food must be kept in bear lockers.

Kings Canyon National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

Grant Grove is open all year, with snow from December to April, when the sequoias are at their most beautiful and chains are often required; the road into the canyon to Cedar Grove opens in late April or May and closes in mid-November. June has the rivers and waterfalls at full snowmelt, and dangerous currents; July and August are warm and busy, hot on the canyon floor;

September and early October are the best weeks, clear and quiet. Wildfire smoke and closures are a feature of late summer, and the KNP Complex fire of 2021 burned through Redwood Mountain. Allow a full day for Grant Grove and the drive to Road's End, two or three with a hike and Sequoia. The Giant Forest and General Sherman are an hour south on the Generals Highway, Fresno is the nearest city, and Yosemite is three hours north.