king canyon national park.

We visited King Canyon National Park in the same trip as Sequoia and Yosemite. I recommend 2-3 days in Yosemite (we did 2 our first time), one in King Canyon, and one in Sequoia. Since we live in Orange County, we decided to do Yosemite first since it was the farthest away.

King Canyon is in between Yosemite and Sequoia and because of that, I think it often gets skipped over. King Canyon reminds me of the Grand Canyon if it were just one long and windy road. We felt a little eerie in the park as we were some of the only ones in the entire park! We visited King Canyon in late August and arrived in early morning. Our first stop in the park was Grant Grove. The General Sherman tree lives in this grove and it’s the largest single stem tree in the world. This is definitely a must see while in the park. We even got to walk through a fallen tree’s trunk. How cool is that?! Standing next to and walking through a tree this large is an out of body experience.

After leaving the grove, we took off for the canyon. There is only one long road that goes through the park as most of King Canyon is only accessible by backpacking. Hikes in this park are not for the faint of heart, many of the hikes take place on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). King Canyon road is a very long, narrow, and curvy road that will take you to the valley of the canyon. We stopped many times on this road to take photos but be careful, if the park is busy, this could be very dangerous.
Once in the valley, we stopped at Grizzly Falls. This is an easy waterfall to walk to and it even has its own parking lot. The water was so refreshing as it was very hot in the canyon. Continuing on, we also stopped at Roaring River Falls. This falls is about a 0.2 mile hike to the base of the falls. We sat here and enjoyed the loud noise of the rushing water.

After experiencing the falls, we stopped in Zumalt Meadow. The meadow was so calm and peaceful and full of vibrant color. We spent a good amount of time here strolling along all of the paths.

At the end of King Canyon road is the trail for Mist Falls (not to be confused with Mist Falls in Yosemite). Mist Falls is an 11 mile round-trip hike to a beautiful fall along the PCT. This trail, though more flat than most Yosemite hikes, was not easy. The trail was very long but well worth it in the end. When we got to the waterfall it was such a nice reward! Not to mention the canyon views along the way. We did not pass many people on our way, but there were some horses and hikers on the trail. We were impressed the horses did the hike! By time we finished the hike, the sun was setting so we drove back down King Canyon road and up through the canyon.

Where We Stayed:
For this trip, we stayed in Coarsegold for Yosemite and then stayed in Tulare for both King Canyon and Sequoia. Tulare is farther from King Canyons entrance but it was closer to Sequoia. We drove about 2.5 hours from King Canyon to our Air BnB in Tulare. Our home was great and I would highly recommend it for Sequoia. The home was so spacious and the hosts even provided us with snacks, water, and beer. Next time we go to King Canyon, we may try to stay somewhere a bit closer. Tulare, CA is a farming community with many franchised restaurants. You will find many places to stop and eat.

Best Time To Visit:

Spring
Summer
Fall

king canyon national park.

sequoia national park.

24 hours in new york city.