Bale Mountains National Park is Ethiopia's premier biodiversity hotspot, protecting vast afro-alpine plateaus, glacial lakes and lush forests, while sheltering rare endemic species including the Ethiopian wolf, mountain nyala and Bale monkey across dramatically varied volcanic highland terrain.
California: Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
🍅 Fresno, Fruit Stands, and a Very Unhappy Jeep
We hit the road just as the day was beginning to warm up properly, pointing the car south towards Fresno, deep in California’s vast Central Valley. Now, Fresno isn’t exactly on most people’s bucket lists — and honestly, fair enough. It’s not Rome. It’s not even Swindon, which at least has that magic roundabout people seem oddly fond of. But here’s the thing: Fresno has two — count them, two — Sweet Tomatoes restaurants, and that, as far as we were concerned, made it practically a pilgrimage site.
Sweet Tomatoes, for the uninitiated, was an all-you-can-eat salad and soup chain that had been feeding hungry Americans since it opened its first restaurant in San Jose back in 1978. The concept was beautifully simple: fresh salads, hot soups, baked goods, and pasta, all laid out in an enormous self-serve buffet. It was the sort of place that made you feel briefly virtuous right up until the moment you went back for your fourth bowl of clam chowder. The chain, at its peak, had over a hundred locations spread across the warmer American states — sensibly never venturing into anywhere that might actually get a proper winter.
Our timing was, for once in our lives, absolutely perfect. We rolled in at one o’clock sharp and proceeded, as is apparently our God-given right at such establishments, to eat a truly spectacular amount of food. One does wonder, philosophically speaking, whether it is actually possible to eat too much salad. After extensive personal research on this occasion, the answer appears to be: yes. Yes, it is.
Suitably stuffed and feeling only mildly ashamed of ourselves, we set off for our real destination: the twin national parks of Sequoia and Kings Canyon, sitting up in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east.
Leaving Fresno behind, we drove out through the southern end of California’s Central Valley — one of the most productive agricultural regions on earth. The valley stretches roughly 450 miles from north to south and has been farmed intensively since the late 19th century, when a vast network of irrigation canals was built to bring snowmelt water down from the Sierra Nevada. Today it produces something like a quarter of all the food grown in the United States — almonds, grapes, cotton, tomatoes, and, most famously, citrus fruits. The grasslands alongside the road were already parched and bleached to a pale, dusty yellow by the fierce Californian sun, looking for all the world like they hadn’t seen proper rain since sometime around the Thatcher years.
In among those dry grasses were vivid green groves of citrus trees — oranges, lemons, the occasional grapefruit — though it was still early enough in the season that we couldn’t quite tell what everything was going to turn into. Not that it mattered enormously, because dotted along the roadside were fruit stands doing a perfectly good job of telling us exactly what the valley had to offer. We had absolutely no option whatsoever but to pull over and buy cherries, plums, and peaches. It would have been rude not to.
Soon after the fruit stand, the road began to climb. Properly climb. The temperature in the valley had been sitting comfortably in the mid-nineties — that’s somewhere around 35 degrees for those of us still loyal to sensible units of measurement — and it was not meaningfully cooler as we wound our way up into the mountains. The Sierra Nevada are not gentle hills. They rise sharply from the valley floor, and the road up into Sequoia climbs from around 300 feet to well over 6,000 feet in a remarkably short distance, twisting through dozens of tight switchbacks with vertiginous drops on one side and solid rock on the other.
Our Jeep, which had been doing perfectly fine on flat roads at sea level, took a dim view of all this and began to overheat. We pressed on cautiously, keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge and trying not to think too hard about what being stranded on the side of a Californian mountain in ninety-degree heat would actually involve. The views, at least, were genuinely stunning — vast valleys thousands of feet below us, shimmering in the heat haze, with ridge after ridge of mountains disappearing into the distance. The scenery shifted dramatically as we climbed: dry scrub and chaparral gave way to tall ponderosa pines and, higher still, to open mountain meadows where the air was finally, mercifully, cooler.
Knowing that petrol — or gasoline, as the locals insist on calling it with cheerful wrongness — was not going to be available inside the national park itself, we pulled into a filling station near the park entrance to top up. This was not your typical motorway services. It styled itself as a rustic Indian Trading Post, which is really just another way of saying “we know you have no alternative, so brace yourself for the prices.” We filled up regardless. When you’re on the road up a mountain with a temperamental Jeep and two national parks waiting at the top, you don’t negotiate. You just pay and try not to whimper.
🏕️ Home Sweet Shed — Grant Grove Village
We finally made it through the entrance to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks — a combined protected area that’s been drawing visitors since the late 19th century, when the US Government set aside the land in 1890, making it the second national park in America after Yellowstone. All very impressive on paper. Less impressive was what awaited us.
We tracked down our accommodation at Grant Grove Village, a small cluster of rustic lodgings sitting at around 6,500 feet up in the western Sierra Nevada, surrounded by some of the oldest and largest trees on the planet. The Giant Sequoias out there have been growing since before the Roman Empire fell, so you’d think the surrounding infrastructure might have had time to catch up a bit. It hadn’t.
Our lodging was described, quite generously, as a cabin. Now, I’ve stayed in some pretty basic places over the years — we all have — but calling this a cabin was doing rather a lot of heavy lifting. A cabin suggests Lincoln Logs, a rocking chair, perhaps a modest oil lamp for atmosphere. What we actually had was a shed. A proper, no-nonsense, garden-centre shed, only with slightly more dubious mattresses.
The interior décor was what an estate agent might diplomatically call “minimalist.” Two beds with mattresses that appeared to have been stuffed with compacted gravel, a table, a chair, and a bedside table that wobbled if you looked at it funny. That was it. There was no attempt at cosiness, no nod toward comfort, no little basket of local jam. The Americans do many things brilliantly. This was not one of them.
To make matters worse, the windows were roughly the size of a large postage stamp — possibly two, if you’re feeling optimistic. Given that we were sitting in the middle of a dense conifer forest, the net result was a darkness so total it felt like being inside a Hobbit’s burrow. Specifically, the sort of burrow where Bilbo keeps the coal. You’d have needed a miner’s lamp just to find your shoes.
Still, it was ours for a couple of nights, and after a long day on the road, even a shed starts to look reasonably appealing. We unpacked, bumped into various bits of furniture in the gloom, and called it home.
What to see
🌲 Grant’s Grove
Just a short drive from Grant’s Grove Village, we found ourselves crossing into Kings Canyon National Park proper — and that’s where things got properly impressive.
Grant’s Grove is home to some of the most magnificent Giant Sequoias you’ll find anywhere on earth, and given that this entire National Park is named after them, you’d hope they’d put on a decent show. They did not disappoint, which, if I’m honest, is not something I say often.
Now, these are not trees you can fully appreciate from a photograph. The Giant Sequoia grows only in a remarkably narrow band of alpine territory — a slender strip of the west-facing slopes of California’s high Sierra Nevada range, sitting at elevations roughly between 5,000 and 7,000 feet. They don’t grow on the east-facing side, they don’t grow at lower altitudes, and they certainly don’t grow anywhere else in the world. They are, in short, extraordinarily fussy about where they live, rather like a retired colonel looking for a suitable spot in the Cotswolds.
In terms of sheer bulk, the Giant Sequoia holds the title of largest tree on the planet, measured by the volume of the trunk. We’re talking trunks that can reach up to 40 feet in circumference — that’s not a typo — and heights of well over 200 feet. They begin life as absurdly tiny seeds, which feels somewhat unfair on the seed. The trees go through five recognised stages of development: seedling, sapling, spire-top, mature, and monarch. At the mature stage, the tree has hit its maximum height but carries on adding bulk to the trunk, and the branches begin to twist and contort in rather dramatic fashion, losing the neat regularity of the younger stages. There’s something appropriately grand about that — still growing, just differently.
Their lifespan is, frankly, humbling. Some of these trees have been standing for over 3,000 years. To put that into perspective, some of them were already ancient when the Roman Empire was in full swing. Julius Caesar would have found them old. I found that thought slightly troubling, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.
We had, of course, already seen the coastal Redwoods during our time on the California coast — those impossibly tall giants that top 300 feet. The Redwoods have the height, there’s no question about that, but their trunks are considerably narrower. When it comes to overall volume and mass, the Giant Sequoia wins comfortably. It’s the difference between a beanpole and a prop forward, if that helps.
A short trail took us through the Grove, which was just long enough to feel like a proper walk without anyone complaining. As well as the living, upright trees standing around looking magnificent and entirely unbothered by our presence, we came across several fallen giants. These gave us the chance to see something rather surprising — the root systems. For trees of this extraordinary size, the roots are remarkably shallow and spread outwards rather than downwards, rarely going deeper than twelve feet. When you see one of these enormous trees laid out on the forest floor, it becomes quite obvious why a good number of them end up toppled. High winds, soil saturation, and the sheer top-heavy weight of the things are usually the culprits. They don’t rot from disease or get struck down by beetles like lesser trees — they simply, eventually, fall over. Somewhat relatable, if I’m being candid.
The headline attraction of the Grove is the General Grant Tree — a monarch, which is the highest stage of Sequoia development, and it earns the title. Named in 1867 and later designated the Nation’s Christmas Tree by President Coolidge in 1926, which seems a somewhat understated honour for something so magnificent, it stands there with the quiet authority of something that has absolutely nothing left to prove. We took the obligatory photographs, fully aware that no camera is remotely up to the job, and then headed off to make the most of the remaining daylight.
🏔️ Kings Canyon Scenic Byway — The Road That Goes Nowhere (On Purpose)
Our final mission of the day was to drive down into Kings Canyon, and what a way to round things off it turned out to be.
Kings Canyon is, to put it plainly, enormous. It’s one of the deepest canyons in the entire United States, carved over millions of years by the relentless erosive force of the Kings River and, long before that, by glaciers that have since had the good sense to disappear entirely. The canyon walls are steep, sheer granite — the sort of rock face that makes you feel very small and slightly queasy if you look up at it for too long. There’s only one road in, which is, when you think about it, the only sensible arrangement. It winds its way down several thousand feet to the valley floor below, and from there it follows the Kings River all the way to a point that someone with a refreshingly literal mind once named “Road’s End.” Exactly what it says on the tin.
Road’s End, as the name rather gives away, is where the tarmac stops and the wilderness begins. It marks the trailhead for dozens of hiking routes that push off into the back-country of the High Sierras — a vast, remote, largely roadless landscape of peaks, passes, and meadows that serious hikers and seasoned backpackers spend weeks crossing. We were not, it has to be said, feeling particularly serious or seasoned that afternoon. So we left the epic wilderness trekking to people with better boots and considerably more ambition, and settled instead for a nice drive.
The journey down to Road’s End took quite a while, which honestly surprised nobody given that the road twists and turns along the edge of a granite cliff for mile after mile. The views were genuinely glorious — sweeping, dramatic, the sort of scenery that makes you pull over just to stare at it for a bit — though the precipitous drops on one side did keep things lively. We also noticed, clinging to the granite slopes beside us, tall spikes of yucca in flower, their dramatic cream-coloured blooms shooting upward like nature’s own exclamation marks. The yucca, incidentally, has been part of this landscape for thousands of years. Native American peoples of the Sierra Nevada — including the Paiute and Mono tribes — used virtually every part of the plant: the fibrous leaves for weaving baskets and rope, the flowers and seeds as food, the roots as soap. All of which made us feel rather guilty for merely admiring them through a car window.
Once we reached the valley floor, we drove alongside the Kings River itself, which was running fast, cold, and distinctly purposeful. It had been swollen considerably by the ongoing snowmelt from the Sierras — late spring and early summer being the peak period for this sort of thing, when billions of gallons of winter snowpack make their way down through the granite channels and into the river system. The sound of it was terrific: a constant, rushing, churning roar that you could hear even with the windows up.
Some miles further along — the road from Grant Grove Village to Road’s End runs to about 40 miles in total, so this is not a quick nip down and back — we spotted a pull-in for a waterfall. Now, we are not the sort of people who drive past a waterfall. Nobody sensible is. We piled out, walked the short path, and found ourselves standing in front of a very decent cascade dropping some 50 feet into a plunge pool below. It was impressive. It was also, within approximately four seconds, soaking us comprehensively from head to foot. The force of the falling water generated both a powerful spray and something approaching a small, localised gale, and we discovered rather quickly that our waterproof credentials were not quite up to the occasion. Our exposure to this natural wonder was, in the end, brief. We beat a cold and damp retreat back to the car with the brisk efficiency of people who have learned their lesson.
Road’s End itself, reached eventually and with slightly damp clothing, offered a car park, some information boards, and the start of various trails vanishing into the trees. It is, in fairness, more of a beginning than an ending — though perhaps not for us today. By this point we were also beginning to notice that we were hungry, which tends to focus the mind considerably. We turned the car around, made our way back along the canyon floor, and then climbed the long, winding road back up the cliff to Grant Grove Village, arriving in considerably better spirits than our waterfall-soaked shirts might have suggested.
🏕️ Lodgepole Visitor Center
We’d slept badly. The mattresses in our cabin were the kind that make you wonder whether the National Park Service has some kind of grudge against visitors, and the night temperatures had dropped sharply from the warm afternoon before. We woke up stiff, cold, and not even remotely refreshed — which, at our age, is never a promising start to the day.
Breakfast was a cobbled-together affair from provisions we’d picked up at the Village market, which, true to the grand American tradition of captive audiences, charged roughly twice what anything was worth. Still, it fuelled us well enough to venture out and face the Sequoias.
Our first port of call was the Visitor Center at Lodgepole — one of the two main hub complexes within the Park, sitting at around 6,700 feet in the Sierra Nevada and serving as the beating heart of the Sequoia National Park visitor experience since the mid-20th century. The centre has been drawing bewildered tourists since the 1920s, when the Park first began developing proper visitor infrastructure, and it shows — in the best possible way.
We perused the day’s schedule of events, which was, frankly, ambitious. Far too much on offer and nowhere near enough hours to do it all justice. After a fair bit of debate — which mostly consisted of me being overruled — we decided to book the Crystal Cave tour and give the Ranger programme talks a miss for that day.
🌲 Forest of the Giants
We had a bit of time to kill before our tour, so we did what any sensible person would do and got back in the car. Our destination was the Giant Forest — the main Sequoia grove in Sequoia National Park, and the largest remaining old-growth Sequoia forest on Earth. The park itself was established way back in 1890, making it one of America’s oldest, and the Giant Forest sits at around 6,400 feet above sea level in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It covers roughly 1,880 acres, and the sheer number of Sequoias scattered across it is, frankly, extraordinary. These aren’t just big trees, they are the largest trees by volume on the entire planet, and some of the oldest living things you will ever clap eyes on. Several have been standing here since before the Romans showed up in Britain, which puts one’s own existence into rather uncomfortable perspective.
Just a short drive from the Visitor Centre — a handsome stone and timber building that opened in 1928 and looks exactly like you’d expect a 1920s National Park building to look — there was a turn-off for Moro Rock and Tunnel Log. We took it.
Now, as with many of these forests of genuinely colossal trees, the whole place comes studded with what park officials cheerfully call “feature” trees, which is a very American way of saying “look at this absolutely ridiculous thing nature has done.” Along this particular drive there were two main exhibits: the Autolog and the Tunnel Log. You can tell a lot about a country from the names it gives its famous trees.
The Autolog is a large fallen Sequoia that, during the early years of the park in the 1920s and 1930s, was pressed into service as a sort of informal parking driveway. Visitors would actually drive their motor cars up onto the trunk for a photograph. This was considered enormously good fun at the time, and if you think that sounds mad, bear in mind that in those same decades people were also having their picture taken standing on top of grizzly bears, so standards were different. Today, cars are sensibly no longer permitted onto the Autolog — health and safety has presumably had a quiet word — but you can still see the evidence of its former life clearly enough. Grooves have been worn deep into the bark and heartwood of the trunk by the passage of what must have been thousands of vehicles over the years. It’s like a wooden motorway, essentially.
People, however, are still very much welcome to clamber up, and it took absolutely no encouragement whatsoever for Jack and Emily to leg it up onto the trunk and promptly run the entire length of it back and forth at full speed. The most entertaining bit for them — and the most alarming for the adults present — was reaching the root end of the tree, where the whole thing lifts several feet off the ground, and peering down the 20 or so feet to the forest floor below. They thought this was marvellous. We stood at a safe distance trying to look relaxed about it.
The second feature on the tree trail was the Tunnel Log — and yes, it does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a tunnel carved straight through a fallen Giant Sequoia. Unlike some of the rather more controversial “tunnel trees” you find in this part of California — the ones where someone in the nineteenth century thought it would be a splendid idea to hack a hole through a perfectly healthy living tree just so a stagecoach could pass through it — the Tunnel Log is rather more defensible. The tree was already down. It toppled across the road sometime around 1937, and rather than go to all the trouble of moving several hundred tonnes of ancient timber, the park authorities simply cut a passage through it. Sensible, really.
The tunnel itself is just about wide enough for a modern car, which naturally meant we spent a thoroughly undignified amount of time driving backwards and forwards through it taking photographs. We were not alone in this.
But if we’re being honest, the Parker Group rather stole the show. Eight Giant Sequoias growing in a tight cluster, named after the eight members of Captain James Parker’s family. Parker served as Superintendent of Sequoia National Park in the early twentieth century, and somebody clearly decided that having a grove of the largest trees on earth named after your lot was a fitting tribute. Can’t argue with that, really.
🪨 Moro Rock
Not far from Tunnel Log sits Moro Rock, and it’s quite something. This enormous lump of exposed granite has been slowly pushed upward and outward from the surrounding mountain over millions of years, forcing itself into a smooth, rounded dome that juts dramatically above the treeline. It’s the same sort of geological showing-off as the rather more famous Half-Dome over at Yosemite National Park, about 80 miles to the north — though Moro Rock, at roughly 6,725 feet above sea level, is perfectly happy to stand on its own merits, thank you very much.
We pulled into the car park with high hopes, at which point Emily had what one might diplomatically describe as a bit of a melt-down. She elected to stay in the car while the rest of us went off to have a look.
The climb to the summit is via a paved trail of around 400 steps, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programme to put unemployed young men to work. Useful chaps. The steps wind their way up sheer rock faces, with some fairly persuasive vertical drops of several hundred feet on either side — the sort of drops that have a way of focusing the mind wonderfully. A short way up, Mark quietly decided that the climb wasn’t really for him, and headed back down to read the information boards about the rock’s geology. Sensible man.
What none of us knew at that point was that Emily had thought better of her car-based retirement and had started up the stairs to find us. She made it about halfway before the heights — or more precisely the drops — made themselves rather forcefully known to her. She sat down on the steps and began to cry. Fair enough, really.
Meanwhile, up at the top, Jack and Karen were enjoying the genuinely spectacular views sweeping across the deep river canyons and out towards the distant Sierra Nevada mountain range, which on a clear day stretches across the horizon like a crumpled postcard. Fortunately, some kind-hearted fellow visitors took pity on Emily and went back up to find Karen. Jack came down to be with Emily, with Karen following somewhat gingerly behind — she was by this point feeling rather less certain about the descent than she’d been about the ascent.
Eventually, the whole party was reunited and made their way back to the bottom, much relieved. I, meanwhile, had been waiting patiently at the base of the rock, cheerfully oblivious to the whole drama unfolding above me, and was rather taken aback to find Emily in tears when she appeared. It took quite some time before normal service was resumed.
The photo on the next page shows the widest, safest part of the trail. Further up, there were passing places on a narrow path with a rock wall at knee height standing between a walker and certain death. Reassuring stuff.
🦇 Crystal Caves
It was getting close to the time of our tour of the Crystal Caves, so we jumped into the car and headed off along the winding road to the trailhead. Now, I use the word “winding” in the way that only Americans truly understand — this wasn’t a gentle country lane meander, this was a road that seemed to have been designed by someone who’d lost a bet. Still, we made it in one piece, parked up, and set off on what turned out to be a very pleasant 15-minute walk down into a lush, verdant valley along a steep trail path. And when I say steep, I mean steep enough that you start reassessing your life choices about halfway down.
Coming up from the other direction were the people from the previous tour, and they looked absolutely beetroot — gasping, sweating, and wearing the haunted expressions of people who had just remembered why they normally take the lift. Which made perfect sense once you factor in that the Park sits at somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above sea level. At that altitude, even a brisk walk to the gift shop requires a sit-down and a biscuit afterwards. Any form of exercise up here is noticeably harder, and your lungs spend most of their time looking confused.
We eventually reached the bottom of the path, passing a rather pretty set of waterfalls along the way — the kind of thing that would have a National Trust car park and a tearoom attached to it back home, but here was just sitting there, quietly getting on with it, unbothered. As this was a guided tour, we had to wait at the cave entrance for our tour party to assemble. And this was where things got genuinely interesting, because the lighting system in the caves had completely packed in. The whole electrical setup had failed, which meant we’d be navigating the cave entirely by torchlight — or flashlights, as the Americans insist on calling them, which always makes me think they’re about to go hunting.
The usual tour group here runs to around 50 people, which in a cave is roughly 49 too many if you ask me. But on this particular day, there were only 10 of us, which meant we had easy, relaxed access to our tour guide — a chap who clearly knew his stuff and gave us a thorough briefing on the history, geology, and ecology of the cave before we headed in. The Crystal Caves are a limestone karst system, and caves like this have been forming over millions of years through the slow dissolution of rock by mildly acidic groundwater — a geological process so unhurried that it makes British Rail look positively frantic by comparison.
Our guide explained that the cave is home to nine species of bats, though they generally have the good sense to stay well away from the areas where tours pass through. Almost on cue — and you really couldn’t have scripted it better — a bat immediately flew directly into our section of the cave, performed what could only be described as a series of highly theatrical aerobatic manoeuvres, and then shot back off into the darkness. The guide looked mildly mortified. We were delighted.
Slightly flustered, he ushered us onwards into the first of the cave’s chambers, where we were treated to the full range of cave formations — stalactites hanging from the ceiling, stalagmites rising from the floor, along with curtains, popcorn formations, and various other extraordinary shapes that take thousands of years to grow and approximately 30 seconds for a careless tourist to destroy. We’ve been to many caves over the years, but doing this entirely by torchlight gave the whole experience a very different quality — more atmospheric, more intimate, and, frankly, rather spiritual. It felt less like a tourist attraction and more like something genuinely ancient and private that we’d been quietly let into.
The most affecting moment came when our guide asked us all to switch off our torches simultaneously. In an instant, we were in a darkness so total and so absolute that it genuinely took your breath away. Standing there in the silence while our guide talked quietly about the cave felt like something quite rare — one of those moments that you don’t expect to get on a package holiday. All too soon, it was time to leave the cool 50°F (10°C) of the cave’s subterranean chambers and head back out into the 80°F (27°C) heat of the surrounding forest. The walk back up the hill was every bit as lung-bursting as we’d imagined. It also, finally, explained exactly why those poor people we’d passed on the way down had looked quite so spectacularly red-faced.
🌲 The Sentinel and General Sherman Trees
To round off the day, we headed back to the Giant Forest — which, despite the name, is not where you go to feel good about your height — to take a look at the museum dedicated to the Giant Sequoias.
Just outside the museum stands a magnificent specimen that goes by the name “The Sentinel.” The rather deflating official line is that it’s considered an average Sequoia. Average. A tree that would comfortably crush a double-decker bus and has almost certainly been alive since before the Norman Conquest is what botanists apparently file under nothing special. It’s the sort of humbling perspective you don’t really ask for on a Tuesday afternoon, but there you are.
The Giant Forest itself sits within Sequoia National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada, a park that was established back in 1890 — one of the oldest in the United States — specifically to protect these extraordinary trees. The Sequoias here have been quietly getting on with things for somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 years, largely indifferent to everything that’s happened in the meantime, including the fall of Rome, the Black Death, and the invention of the leaf blower.
Inside the museum, there were a number of well-put-together exhibits covering the ecology of the Sequoias — how they grow, why they’re so absurdly large, and the rather counter-intuitive role that fire plays in their survival. It turns out the Sequoia needs fire to release its seeds from their cones, which is either a brilliant evolutionary strategy or the most dramatic approach to reproduction in the natural world. The museum did a decent job of explaining all this without making you feel like you were back in school.
The trees themselves, of course, are in a league entirely of their own. The nearby General Sherman Tree — widely cited as the largest living tree on Earth by volume — weighs in at an estimated 1.4 million kilograms and stands just over 84 metres tall. It has been growing, more or less continuously, since around 700 AD. We didn’t plant it. We didn’t design it. We’ve barely managed not to cut it down. Sometimes nature just gets on with the job rather better than we do.
🌲 Giants on Borrowed Time — and a General Worth Meeting
It turned out, rather humbling, that the perfect conditions needed to establish these Sequoias had only been in place for around 4,500 years. Put another way, that’s just one and a half Sequoia lifetimes. The trees themselves are older than the conditions that made them possible, in geological terms, practically yesterday. As for the long-term prognosis, well, that’s where things got a bit gloomy. Global warming — that slow-motion catastrophe we’ve all been cheerfully ignoring for decades — is doing its damaging work on the environment, and nobody seemed entirely sure what the future holds for these arboreal giants. The scientists who study this sort of thing were, shall we say, cautiously optimistic at best and quietly terrified at worst.
Still, we weren’t there to catastrophise. We were there to stand at the foot of something extraordinary and simply look up with our mouths open like a pair of tourists, which, let’s be honest, is exactly what we were.
What gave us genuine cause for optimism, though, was the resilience of the trees themselves. Some of the Sequoias in this forest had been quietly getting on with things for a full 3,000 years. Three thousand years. These things were already ancient when the Romans were busy building roads and complaining about the weather in Britain. In those three millennia, they’d come through droughts, enormous swings in temperature, and forest fires that would have reduced most other species to charcoal and a bad memory. They were tough, adaptable, and deeply unimpressed by adversity. There was every chance, we thought, that they’d still be here long after the rest of us have stopped worrying about them altogether.
A short drive from the museum brought us to another one of the forest’s headline acts: the “General Sherman” tree. This is the largest living tree in the world — at least, that’s what everyone says, and we had absolutely no reason to argue with a tree that size. Its base diameter comes in at approaching 36 feet, which is the sort of measurement that initially means nothing until you’re actually standing next to it and your brain quietly gives up trying to process the scale.
We took the half-mile walk from the car park down to the General Sherman, and it was entirely worth the effort. Jack, in particular, absolutely loved these giants of the forest — and honestly, it was hard not to. There’s something about standing next to something that old, that enormous, and that utterly indifferent to your presence that puts things in a rather useful perspective.
Planning your visit to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
🌲 Overview
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks sit side by side in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains of California, together protecting some of the most spectacular wilderness in the United States. Home to the world’s largest trees by volume, these parks draw visitors from across the globe who come to stand in awe beneath ancient giant sequoias, gaze into deep granite canyons, and explore a landscape shaped over millions of years.
The two parks are managed jointly by the National Park Service and share a single entrance pass, making them easy to explore together. Whether you are travelling as a family, a couple, or a solo adventurer, the parks offer an extraordinary range of experiences, from gentle walks through cathedral-like groves to challenging high-altitude wilderness treks.
📍 Location
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are located in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Tulare and Fresno counties, central California. The parks lie roughly 50 miles east of Fresno and about 260 miles north of Los Angeles.
Two main routes provide access. Highway 180 from Fresno leads east into Kings Canyon National Park, continuing a further 30 miles east to the Cedar Grove area. Highway 198 from Visalia leads east through the town of Three Rivers into Sequoia National Park. Inside the parks, Highway 198 becomes the Generals Highway, which connects the two park entrances. Visitors should note that vehicles over 22 feet in length are advised to enter via Highway 180.
The parks’ mailing address is: 47050 Generals Highway, Three Rivers, CA 93271, USA.
🌐 Website
The official National Park Service website for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is: www.nps.gov/seki
Here you will find up-to-date information on road conditions, current alerts, campground availability, wilderness permits, visitor centre hours, ranger programmes, and much more. The site is an essential resource both before and during your visit.
📞 Contact Phone Number
The main visitor information line is: +1 (559) 565-3341
When prompted, press 1 for the most current information on road conditions, weather, and any park fires. The line is managed by the National Park Service.
Accessibility phone options are also available: TTY Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339, Voice Carry Over: (877) 877-6280, and Speech-to-Speech: (877) 877-8982.
✉️ Email / Contact Form
The parks do not publish a direct email address for general public enquiries. Instead, an online contact form is available through the official NPS website at the Contact Us page (www.nps.gov/seki/contacts.htm). Due to the volume of correspondence received, visitors are advised to allow a week or more for a reply. For quick answers before getting in touch, the parks’ Frequently Asked Questions page covers a wide range of topics including trip planning and safety.
🕐 Opening Times
The parks are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There is no gate that closes at night, and visitors may enter at any time.
However, some roads within the parks are subject to seasonal closures and weather-related shutdowns, particularly during winter. The Generals Highway between the two parks often closes when snow falls heavily. Tyre chains may be required on park roads at any time between autumn and spring. Visitors travelling in winter should check road condition information before setting out.
There are five main areas within the parks where camping, lodging, and visitor services are available. Grant Grove, the Foothills, and Giant Forest and Lodgepole are served year-round. The Mineral King and Cedar Grove areas operate on a seasonal basis, typically open from spring through to autumn. Cedar Grove is generally open from May through to early or mid-November, depending on conditions.
Visitor centre hours vary by season and location. Current hours for all visitor centres are listed on the parks’ official website.
💵 Entry Fees
Both parks are covered by the same entrance pass. The parks do not accept cash at entrance stations. Payment must be made by credit or debit card, or by digital methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay. Visitors who wish to pay in cash may purchase a pass in advance at the Sequoia Parks Conservancy stores located at the Foothills Visitor Centre and the Kings Canyon Visitor Centre.
Standard Entrance Pass (valid for up to 7 days):
- Private vehicle (all occupants): $35.00 USD
- Motorcycle (up to 2 bikes, up to 4 passengers): $30.00 USD
- Individual on foot or by bicycle (aged 16 and over): $20.00 USD
- Children under 16: free
Non-US residents aged 16 and over are required to pay an additional fee of $100 per person on top of the standard entrance pass, unless they hold an Annual or America the Beautiful Pass.
Annual Pass (Sequoia and Kings Canyon only): $70.00 USD — valid for 12 months from the month of purchase, covering all passengers in a private vehicle.
America the Beautiful — National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass: $80.00 USD per year for US residents, or $250.00 USD for non-residents. This pass grants access to over 2,000 federal recreation sites across the United States and is excellent value for visitors planning to visit multiple parks.
Discounted and free passes are available for US residents who are aged 62 or over, active military personnel and their dependants, individuals with a permanent disability, and US fourth-grade students and their families.
Free entrance days are offered on selected public holidays throughout the year. These typically include Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day weekend, the National Park Service birthday in August, Constitution Day in September, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday in October, and Veterans’ Day in November. Free days apply to US citizens and residents only; standard non-resident fees still apply on these dates.
🏕️ Getting Around the Parks
The parks cover a vast and diverse terrain, ranging from hot, dry foothills at around 1,400 feet in elevation to alpine peaks reaching over 14,000 feet. There are no roads crossing the parks from east to west, so careful route planning is essential.
Within the parks, a free shuttle bus service operates in the Giant Forest and Lodgepole areas during the summer season, reducing traffic and making it easier to access key attractions without a car. The shuttle is highly recommended during busy periods, as parking can be extremely limited at popular sites such as Moro Rock and the General Sherman Tree.
For those exploring by car, the Generals Highway is the main route linking the two parks. The road is narrow and winding in places, and larger vehicles should plan their route carefully in advance.
🌳 What to See and Do
The parks offer an extraordinary range of activities and natural highlights across all seasons.
The Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park is home to the General Sherman Tree, widely regarded as the largest living tree on Earth by volume, standing over 274 feet tall and measuring more than 36 feet in diameter at its base. A short, paved trail leads to the tree from the nearby car park, making it accessible to most visitors.
The Big Trees Trail near Round Meadow provides a gentle, fully accessible loop through a stunning grove of giant sequoias, with interpretive boards explaining the ecology and history of these ancient organisms. It is one of the finest short walks in either park.
Moro Rock, a dome of bare granite rising sharply from the forest, offers a steep but rewarding climb to a summit platform with panoramic views across the Great Western Divide. The ascent involves around 350 steps and takes approximately 30 minutes.
Kings Canyon itself is one of the deepest canyons in North America, with walls plunging over 8,000 feet. The Kings Canyon Scenic Byway winds through the canyon to Cedar Grove, passing dramatic cliffs, turquoise rivers, and rocky beaches. Cedar Grove is a peaceful base for hiking and exploring the canyon floor during the summer months.
Crystal Cave is a stunning marble cavern within Sequoia National Park, open to visitors during the warmer months on guided tours only. Tickets must be purchased in advance, as they are not available at the cave itself.
For those seeking more active adventure, the parks contain over 800 miles of maintained hiking trails, ranging from easy strolls through sequoia groves to multi-day backcountry routes into the high Sierra Nevada. Wilderness permits are required for overnight backcountry travel and must be reserved in advance for the busy summer season.
Climbing, fishing, stargazing, and snowshoeing are among the many other activities available depending on the season.
🏨 Accommodation
Lodging within the parks is provided by the parks’ concessioner and includes the Wuksachi Lodge in Sequoia, which offers comfortable hotel-style rooms in a forested setting above the sequoia groves, and the Grant Grove Cabins in Kings Canyon, which range from rustic tent cabins to more solid, heated structures. Both fill up quickly during the summer months and advance booking is strongly advised.
The parks also have 16 campgrounds offering a wide range of options, from developed sites with toilets and bear-proof food storage boxes, to more remote primitive sites accessible only by foot. Many popular campgrounds require reservations during the peak summer period, bookable through the Recreation.gov website. Some sites remain available on a first-come, first-served basis outside the busiest months.
For those who prefer to stay outside the parks, the town of Three Rivers on the western edge of Sequoia National Park offers a range of hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and holiday rentals. Fresno and Visalia, both larger cities to the west, provide a broader choice of accommodation at various price points and are within a comfortable driving distance of the park entrances.
Best time to visit Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Spring (March to May)
Spring is one of the most rewarding yet unpredictable seasons to visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon. As snow begins to melt at lower elevations from March onwards, the foothills erupt in wildflowers and the waterfalls — particularly those fed by snowmelt along the Kings River — reach their dramatic peak. The giant sequoias, dusted with pollen and glowing copper-gold in slanted light, are magnificent. Lower elevations around Ash Mountain and Cedar Grove open earlier, often by April, while the upper reaches of the parks, including Giant Forest and the General Sherman Tree area, may remain partially snowbound well into May.
Temperatures vary enormously with altitude. The foothills can be pleasantly warm at 15–20°C, while Giant Forest at around 2,000 metres may see daytime highs of only 5–12°C with overnight frost still common through April. Some higher roads and parts of the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway remain closed or require tyre chains. Visitor numbers are refreshingly low in early spring, rising steadily through May. Wildlife is active and visible — mule deer, black bears emerging from winter torpor, and a rich variety of birdlife reward patient observers.
What to pack: Waterproof hiking boots, thermal base layers, a fleece mid-layer and waterproof shell jacket, lightweight gloves and a warm hat for mornings and evenings, sunscreen and sunglasses for snow-reflected glare, trekking poles for muddy or icy trails, a rain cover for your rucksack, printed or offline maps, a refillable water bottle, and tyre chains if driving to higher elevations.
☀️ Summer (June to August)
Summer is the peak season in every sense — the busiest, the warmest, and the most accessible. By mid-June, virtually all roads are fully open, all visitor centres and park facilities are operating, and the complete trail network is accessible. The General Sherman Tree, the largest living tree on Earth by volume, is at its most visited, and the sunrise light on the surrounding grove is genuinely spectacular.
Daytime temperatures in the sequoia groves are typically warm rather than hot, ranging from 22–30°C at Giant Forest elevation, though valley floors such as Cedar Grove can push above 38°C on peak summer days. Afternoon thunderstorms are common in July and August, building rapidly over the high Sierra. Wildfire smoke can occasionally affect air quality and visibility. Accommodation and campsites must be booked months in advance; arriving without a reservation during school summer holidays is not advisable.
What to pack: A wide-brimmed sun hat, SPF 50+ sunscreen, insect repellent, a lightweight waterproof jacket for afternoon storms, plenty of water (at least three litres per person per day on the trail), electrolyte tablets, sturdy trail shoes or boots, a bear canister for overnight trips, a portable battery pack, and sandals or camp shoes for evenings.
🍂 Autumn (September to November)
Autumn is widely regarded by seasoned visitors as the finest season in Sequoia and Kings Canyon. The summer crowds thin noticeably after the US Labor Day weekend in early September, yet the weather remains excellent through most of October. Daytime temperatures settle into an ideal hiking range of 15–22°C at sequoia grove elevations, with cool, clear nights. The deciduous trees lining the river valleys — cottonwoods, aspens, and big-leaf maples — turn brilliant amber, gold, and russet, creating a striking contrast with the reddish-brown bark of the giant sequoias.
September still sees roads fully open and all facilities operating, while October brings transition: some high-elevation roads close by late in the month and the first snow can arrive on the peaks. Black bears are conspicuously active in autumn as they build fat reserves before denning — food storage discipline is especially important. November brings genuine quiet along with a high likelihood of snow at elevation. The rewards for those prepared to visit late in the season include profound solitude and the possibility of seeing the sequoias under the first snowfall of winter.
What to pack: A down or synthetic insulated jacket, waterproof outer shell, waterproof trousers for higher trails, sturdy waterproof hiking boots, a beanie and gloves for mornings and evenings, a bear-proof food storage canister, trekking poles, offline maps on your phone, a headtorch with spare batteries, and tyre chains in the boot of the car from October onwards.
❄️ Winter (December to February)
Winter transforms Sequoia and Kings Canyon into an entirely different landscape — hushed, snow-blanketed, and profoundly still. It is the least visited season by a considerable margin, and for those properly equipped, it offers an experience unlike any other. The giant sequoias draped in snow are one of the great natural spectacles of California. However, winter demands careful planning: the Generals Highway can close without notice, Kings Canyon Scenic Byway is shut entirely, and the vast majority of park facilities are closed until spring.
Wuksachi Lodge in Giant Forest remains open year-round and serves as the primary winter base. Snowshoeing and cross-country skiing are the main activities, with equipment available to hire nearby. Temperatures in Giant Forest range from around −8°C overnight to a maximum of 5–8°C on clear days, though wind chill makes exposed ridges feel considerably colder. Roads above the foothills require tyre chains or a four-wheel-drive vehicle with snow tyres, and checking current road conditions before departing is essential.
What to pack: Heavyweight thermal base layers (merino wool is ideal), a high-loft insulated jacket, waterproof and wind-resistant outer layers for top and bottom, insulated waterproof boots rated to at least −15°C, wool or fleece-lined gloves and a balaclava, microspikes or crampons for icy paths, snowshoes (hire available locally), hand and foot warmers, a fully charged phone with offline maps, a torch, an emergency bivvy bag, and tyre chains — non-negotiable for any vehicle travelling above the foothills.
📊 Seasonal Summary
🌲 Overall Best Time to Visit
If one window must be recommended above all others, it is late May to mid-June or mid-September to mid-October. Both periods offer the parks in a state of equilibrium — trails open, weather largely cooperative, facilities accessible, and visitor numbers manageable. Late May and early June bring snowmelt waterfalls at their most thunderous, wildflowers at their most vivid, and an atmosphere of anticipation as the parks wake for summer. September and October offer cooler air, exceptional clarity of light, golden foliage along the river valleys, and the particular satisfaction of sharing the sequoia groves with far fewer people. Whichever shoulder season you choose, you are likely to encounter these ancient, extraordinary trees in conditions that feel both intimate and expansive — which is, ultimately, what a visit to Sequoia and Kings Canyon ought to feel like.
Where to stay in Sequoia / Kings Canyon
1. Wuksachi Lodge
The Wuksachi Lodge is Sequoia National Park’s signature hotel, a striking stone-and-cedar mountain lodge situated in the heart of the park and surrounded by a mighty sequoia forest and soaring Sierra peaks.
All guest rooms at this distinctive Sequoia lodge are located 100-200 yards from the main lodge, and feature upscale, natural décor highlighting native granite rock, oak, cedar and hickory woods, private baths, flat panel televisions, telephones, hair dryers, coffee makers, iron/boards, mini refrigerators, ski racks, central heat, and daily maid service.
2. Lodges and Cabins
3. Campgrounds
There are fourteen campgrounds in these parks, including three that are open year-round. Campgrounds require reservations in advance, and sites are usually full. Reservations can be made in advance at Recreation.gov. Each campsite has a picnic table, fire ring with grill, and a metal food-storage box and can hold up to six people. Campground opening dates may be affected by tree hazards, weather, or other conditions.
More to Explore
