Kings Canyon National Park is wilder and less visited than Sequoia, with a maze-like collection of canyons and a sprinkling of isolated lakes – the perfect environment for careful self-guided exploration. To reach the main canyon proper, you have to pass through the hamlet of Grant Grove, where there’s a useful visitor center (daily: mid-May–Aug 8am–6pm; rest of year 8am–5pm) and the 2.5-mile Big Stump Trail shows off the remains of the logging which took place in the 1880s. Several massive trees from these parts were sliced up and sent to the Atlantic seaboard to convince cynical easterners that such enormous trees really existed. A mile west of Grant Grove, a large stand of sequoias contains the General Grant and Robert E Lee trees, which rival the General Sherman further south.

Kings Canyon Highway (Hwy-180; May–Oct only) descends from Grant Grove into the steep-sided Kings Canyon, cut by the furious gushings of various forks of the Kings River. Whether or not this is the deepest canyon in the US, as some would have it, its wall sections of granite and gleaming blue marble and the yellow pockmarks of yucca plants are magnificent. It’s extremely perilous to wade into the river: people have been swept away even when paddling close to the bank in a seemingly placid section.

Once into the national park proper, the canyon sheds its V-shape and gains a floor. Cedar Grove Village here is named for its proliferation of incense-cedars. There’s a ranger station across the river (June-Aug daily 9am-5pm; May, Sept & Oct hours reduced). Apart from the scenery, you should look out for the flowers – leopard lilies, shooting stars, violets, lupins and others – and birdlife. The longer hikes beside the creeks, many seven or eight miles long, are fairly strenuous. An easy alternative is to wander around the green Zumwalt Meadow, four miles from Cedar Grove Village and a short walk from the road, beneath the forbidding gray walls of Grand Sentinel and North Dome.

Just a mile further on, Kings Canyon Road comes to an end at Copper Creek. Thirty years ago it was decided that vehicles should not be allowed to penetrate further. Instead the multitude of canyons and peaks which constitute the Kings River Sierra are networked by hiking paths, almost all best enjoyed armed with a tent, provisions and a wilderness permit from the trailhead ranger station.

Places in Kings Canyon NP

1  Redwood Canyon 2  General Grant Tree 3  Boyden Caverns 4  Grizzly Falls 5  Roaring River Falls 6  Mist Falls

For more practical information, go to: Practical NP Info