Sequoia National Park Hiking

Introduction.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks protect one of America's most scenic landscapes. Glacial canyons, the world's largest trees, broad lake basins, lush meadows, and sheer granite peaks form the core of this largest contiguous wilderness in California. The parks' elevations range from 1,300 feet in the foothills to 14,491 at the summit of Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states.

Big trees and big canyons inspired the separate founding of each of these parks although Sequoia and Kings Canyon share miles of common boundary. Officially, Sequoia was designated the second national park and Kings Canyon was designated as the third.

For the sake of presentation, I am going to concentrate this post on Sequoia National Park hiking details. Approximately 1,000,000 people visit Sequoia National Park each year. Your visiting activity options include day hikes, overnight wilderness trips, Ranger led programs, snowshoeing, rock climbing, and many others.

General logistics information.

Sequoia National Park is located on the eastern side of California, about midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. More specifically, the park is about 250 miles from San Francisco and 60 miles from Fresno. There are multiple lodging and camping options within the park boundaries along with there being multiple restaurant/food options. While the park is officially open 24 hours a day, the Visitor Center hours of operation vary by season and some roadways can be closed, depending on the weather.

This post will review the highlights of our visit and our suggestions for some memorable Sequoia National Park hiking experiences. Of course, there is much more to explore in the park though I think if you follow our suggested path, you will get a wide view of the park's history and see some incredible sights.

Sequoia National Park Hiking.

• As always, we believe it is a must to stop at one of the Visitor’s Center. Check out the gift shop, get questions answered from one of the rangers, learn about park activities, and firm up your plans for your visit.
• Regarding Sequoia National Park hiking, our plan divided up the areas of the park we were most interested in, which allowed us to plan out a few days of activities.
• After stopping at the Kings Canyon Visitor Center, we headed to General Grant Tree Trail, a must on your Sequoia National Park hiking list.



• Along the hike you get to experience the Fallen Monarch tree (where you can actually walk inside the shell of the tree).
• Additionally on this relatively short trail, you will visit the Oregon tree, the California tree, and of course the General Grant Tree.
• The General Grant Tree is an amazing and huge specimen in addition to having the honor of being known as the Nation's Christmas Tree, as declared by President Coolidge in 1926.

• Next we drove towards Converse Basin and stopped at McGee View pullout for some nice long range view photos.

• The area of Converse Basin provides 2 very interesting attractions.
• The first is Converse Basin, which was once the world's largest sequoia grove.



• Unfortunately, virtually every mature sequoia was cut down in the early 1900's. Seeing this "Sequoia graveyard" will give you a partial image of what this area must have looked like.

• The other highlight here is a 2 mile loop Sequoia National Park hiking trail to Boole tree.
• The Boole tree is the world's eight largest sequoia, and the largest mass tree still standing. It is quite a site. By the way, it was spared from cutting since it was not easily accessible.

• Our final location for this day was Hume Lake.
• Here you can hike along the lakeside and take in some beautiful lakes views with mountain backdrops, or take in some water activities, if that is something you are interested in doing.



• Our next day was planned to drive down to the Ash Mountain entrance of the park, and explore the sites in this southern section of the park.
• We drove down Generals Highway, which takes you through beautiful sequoia lined woods and sections of the park that provide wonderful mountain views, to the Foothills Visitor's Center.



• As we made our drive back north, we stopped at Tunnel Rock, which is an interesting site and is very close to the roadway, for easy access.

• Then we made our way to Moro Rock for another wonderful Sequoia National Park hiking experience.
• Here you hike up a 400 step stairway carved out of rock to the top for some long range views of the heart of Sequoia National Park.
• We actually brought lunch with us, and although it was a cloudy day, the views from our lunch perch were inspiring.

• Next stop was Crescent Meadow.
• There are nice trails here and it takes about 1 hour to complete the walk, while viewing various clusters of giant sequoias.

• Our next destination was the area around the Giant Forest Museum.
• The museum is certainly worth a visit and also just outside the museum is Sentinel Tree. A very interesting exhibit is the "outline" of Sentinel Tree on the ground, which gives you a true view of just how large these giant sequoia trees are. Walk it from top to bottom, to get a true appreciation of the size of this tree (it took me 103 steps).
• Then it was on to Big Trees Trail. This is a 2/3 mile hike that circles Round Meadow, and includes colorful trailside panels that describe sequoia ecology.



• Our final Sequoia National Park hiking event for the day was the trail to the General Sherman tree.
• This is a trail that descends a half mile, to take you to the star of this hike (remember that means you have a half mile hike back up, to get back to your vehicle).



• You will get to see the General Sherman tree from various locations and angles, along with some other interesting sites along this trail.

• Our last day of Sequoia National Park hiking was in the areas of Lodgepole Village and Grant Grove.

• After a quick visit at the Lodgepole Visitor's Center, it was on to the Tapokah Falls hike.
• This hike is 3.5 miles round trip that takes you along the Kaweah river, past the very impressive Watchman granite rock formation, and ends at the 1,200 foot falls (best observed in early summer when there is strong water flow).
• This was a moderate effort hike and was very refreshing in the cool morning air.



• Next we took the drive to Buck Rock.
• Buck Rock is a historic fire lookout, which after the climb, provides unparalleled views of the Kings Canyon from an elevation of 8,562 feet.

• A word of caution. To get to Buck Rock, you must take an unpaved Forest Service road. This is a slow and challenging ride, so you will have to plan to take your time getting there.
• The views from the top are well worth it, and we had the added pleasure of meeting with and talking with the ranger that was stationed to be "on watch" at the time.



• Our last Sequoia National Park hiking adventure was to get to the top of Little Baldy.
• This hike is another 3.5 mile round trip journey which takes you to the rocky summit, with grand views of the North Fork and Marble Fork canyons.
• At the summit you can catch your breath, catch some great views, and check out the geological marker stating that you have reached an altitude of 8,044 feet.



• Having visited a few parks on this journey out to California, unfortunately it was time to head home. In closing, if the opportunity presents itself, a visit to Sequoia National Park is a great experience and the only place that you can see such a vast collection of giant sequoia trees. Breathtaking.........