John Muir called this California canyon a Yosemite rival in 1891. He was right

John Muir’s favorite rival to Yosemite

Kings Canyon doesn’t get the crowds Yosemite does, and that’s exactly the point.

This park in California’s southern Sierra Nevada covers 461,901 acres of canyon, granite, sequoia groves, and wild river, and it holds the second-largest tree on earth.

John Muir came here in the late 1800s and called it “a rival of the Yosemite” in an 1891 magazine article. He wasn’t wrong, and most people still haven’t figured that out.

This canyon goes deeper than the Grand Canyon

The park’s namesake canyon drops 8,200 feet from Spanish Peak to where the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River come together.

That makes it one of the deepest canyons in the United States, and yes, deeper than the Grand Canyon.

The canyon cuts through Fresno and Tulare Counties in the southern Sierra Nevada, and it draws far fewer visitors than its famous neighbors despite a size and scale that would stop most people cold.

From clear-cut sequoia groves to a national park

In the late 1800s, logging companies moved through this region and cut giant sequoias down for fence posts and vineyard stakes.

The area got its first federal protection on Oct. 1, 1890, when it became General Grant National Park, the nation’s fourth national park. John Muir and the Sierra Club kept pushing for more.

On March 4, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the legislation that expanded the park and renamed it Kings Canyon.

Cedar Grove and Tehipite Valley came in 1965, after decades of fighting off proposals to dam the Kings River.

The tree Eisenhower declared a national shrine

The General Grant Tree stands 268.1 feet tall with a ground circumference of 107.5 feet.

By volume, it is the second-largest tree in the world, just behind the General Sherman Tree in neighboring Sequoia National Park. The Grant Tree is about 1,650 years old.

President Calvin Coolidge named it the “Nation’s Christmas Tree” in 1926.

Then in 1956, President Eisenhower declared it a National Shrine in honor of fallen members of the Armed Forces, making it the only living thing to carry that designation.

Walk past a tree that once stabled cavalry horses

Grant Grove is where most first-time visitors start.

The General Grant Tree trail is a paved, one-third-mile loop that passes through 154 acres of sequoias, many of them exceeding 10 feet in diameter.

Along the way, you’ll pass the Fallen Monarch, a downed sequoia so large that the U.S. Cavalry once used it as a horse stable. The Gamlin Cabin, built in 1872, sits nearby.

The Centennial Stump marks a tree cut in the 1870s that logging camp families used as an outdoor church. Every second Sunday in December, the park holds a ceremony called the “Trek to the Tree” at the Grant Tree’s base.

See the stump of a 1,350-year-old tree cut for a museum

Just past the park entrance, the Big Stump Trail runs two miles through a meadow still marked by massive sequoia stumps left over from 1880s logging.

The most famous stop is the Mark Twain Stump, what’s left of a tree that was 1,350 years old when two men spent 13 days sawing it down in 1891. Sections went to museums in New York and London.

A staircase lets you climb on top and count the rings yourself. The Sawed Tree along the same trail carries century-old saw scars but still grows.

Drive 50 miles of highway carved into solid granite

Highway 180 runs about 50 miles from Grant Grove down to Road’s End, and it is the only road into the canyon. The drive drops roughly 4,000 feet as it winds along cliff edges above the Kings River.

Junction View Overlook shows you where the two forks of the river meet far below. Yucca Point gives you a view nearly straight down into the canyon.

Between the park’s two sections, the byway passes through Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument. Plan for the drive to take longer than the miles suggest.

Step inside a marble cave beneath 2,000-foot walls

Along the Scenic Byway, beneath a 2,000-foot-high marble formation called the Kings Gates, Boyden Cavern sits inside Sequoia National Forest just outside the park boundary.

Prospector J. Putnam Boyden discovered and claimed it in 1907.

Guided tours last 45 to 60 minutes and take you through chambers of stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and shield formations. The cave holds a constant temperature of about 55 degrees year-round, so bring a layer.

A short but steep trail leads up to the entrance, with canyon views on the way up.

Three waterfalls, from roadside to an 8-mile hike

Roaring River Falls drops 40 feet through a narrow granite chute into a pool below, and a short paved trail of about one-third of a mile gets you there. It runs hardest in late spring when snowmelt peaks.

Grizzly Falls sits right along Highway 180, visible from the road or a quick walk to its base. Both are easy stops for any age or fitness level.

Mist Falls is different. It’s one of the park’s largest waterfalls and sits at the end of an 8-mile round trip from Road’s End, with 600 feet of elevation gain in the final mile.

The trail passes granite canyon walls and a rock formation called the Sphinx.

A flat meadow ringed by granite walls thousands of feet high

Zumwalt Meadow is about 1.5 miles of mostly flat trail, with boardwalk sections built to protect the meadow habitat beneath your feet.

Two granite formations flank it on either side: North Dome and the Grand Sentinel, both rising thousands of feet above the canyon floor. A suspension bridge crosses the Kings River near the trailhead.

Come at dawn or dusk and you’re likely to see mule deer or black bears working the meadow edges. In spring and early summer, wildflowers cover the ground between the river and the walls.

Where the road stops and the wilderness starts

Road’s End is the literal end of Highway 180, and it’s where the backcountry begins.

Several major routes start here, including the Rae Lakes Loop, one of the most popular multi-day hikes in the Sierra Nevada. No day-hiking permits are required for trails leaving from this point.

In late summer when water levels drop, Muir Rock, a large flat granite boulder on the Kings River, becomes a popular wading and swimming spot.

The rock takes its name from John Muir, who explored and fought for this land more than a century ago.

The world’s largest sequoia grove sits off the beaten path

Redwood Mountain Grove, inside the park, is one of the largest giant sequoia groves in the world, and you can only get there on foot. That keeps the crowds down.

The Sugar Bowl Loop and the Hart Tree Loop both wind through the grove on moderate multi-mile trails. The Hart Tree is one of the biggest individual sequoias in the grove.

Sugar pines grow alongside the sequoias here, dropping cones up to 24 inches long, the longest cones of any tree species.

In autumn, dogwood and aspen along the creek corridors turn red and gold against the gray bark of the giants.

Kings Canyon shelters one-fifth of all California plant species

The park runs from foothill chaparral at the lower elevations all the way up to alpine peaks above 14,000 feet. That range supports over 1,200 plant species, about 20 percent of all plant species in California.

Black bears, mule deer, mountain lions, bobcats, and rattlesnakes all live here. In 1976, UNESCO recognized the region as part of the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve.

The backcountry, reachable only by trail, makes up the vast majority of the park’s 461,901 acres. A single entrance fee covers both Kings Canyon and neighboring Sequoia National Park.

Visit Kings Canyon National Park in California

Kings Canyon sits about 55 miles east of Fresno on Highway 180, and the closest major airport is Fresno Yosemite International. Grant Grove is open year-round and has a visitor center, market, and restaurant.

Cedar Grove is seasonal, typically open from late April through mid-November, with a smaller visitor center and limited services. One entrance fee covers both Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park.

Check the official website before you go for current road conditions, especially if you’re planning to drive the Scenic Byway into Cedar Grove.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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