The King of Canyons

Friday, June 10th – Kings Canyon National Park to Yosemite National Park, California - Day 120 

There are two sights to see in Kings Canyon National Park, the canyon itself and the giant Sequoia trees. Sequoia and Kings Canyon were two of the first five National Parks created in America. We were told the canyon rivals the Grand Canyon in terms of depth. We needed to see as much as we could in Kings Canyon then make our way out of the park and towards Yosemite, our next destination. 

 

Our first stop was to see the General Grant tree. The trail to the tree led past a fallen Sequoia that a family lived in in the mid-1800’s lived in. They have a picture of people living in the tree and it looks identical to the tree we walked through 150 years later. Fallen Sequoia’s are valuable to the forest ecosystem and can survive intact for ages providing food and shelter for animals and insects. We reached the General Grant which was the comparable in size to General Sherman. Each of these trees are so impressive, the photos you take look like an insignificant portrait of the tree itself. 

When we reached the parking lot we settled in for a bit of lunch on a fallen tree. Gen and I really wanted to do a significant forest hike. We were recommended the North Grove trail, a 2.7 km loop. We started walking down a steep incline on a rather boring road trail. It wasn’t until we took a right into the woods that the trail got interesting. 

There was a burned out section of forest followed by a section of forest that was recovering from a fire in the early 2010’s. There were Sequoia trees approximately the same age and height as Charlotte. Mary was concerned that the hike would be too much for her, so she turned to go back the way we came and took John with her. Now we could make better time. She missed out on an awesome hike. 

The trail continued through a grove of old growth Sequoias that was beautiful. The uphill portion was still significant but the beauty of the forest around it was worth it. We began to worry about Mary and John, but they were back at the parking lot by the time we returned (I took a brief detour down the trail in case they were having problems). The progression of the day was great. We had a small hike, a big hike and now we were back in the car to rest up and enjoy some canyon scenery. 

To be continued...