Yesterday we drove up to Kings Canyon National Park situated just north of Sequoia National Forest. Kings Canyon is said to be the deepest canyon in the United States at over a mile and a half deep but the visual impact cannot compare to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon, with its steep walls and huge ditch like appearance, will take your breath away. If you have never seen the Grand Canyon then you need to put that on your bucket list. In the photo below you can see the Kings River at the canyon floor.
Kings Canyon viewed from Junction View
Closer view of Kings River
The road down into the canyon
The King Canyon Visitor Center is located at Grant Grove which contains many large Sequoia trees, one of them being the General Grant Tree. Not as large and old as the General Sherman Tree, but still impressive. The Grant Grove appeared to have better growing conditions than the Giant Forest Grove where the Sherman Tree is located. The Grant Tree is almost as large as the Sherman Tree but only 1700 years old. There were many large Sequoia trees in this grove. Here are a few photos.
Parking lot at the Grant Tree
Look how small the bus looks next to these trees
The Sequoia resists decay and can last for hundreds of years lying on the forest floor. The fallen tree and the live tree behind the horse in this photo are the same ones in the next photo I took yesterday. The photo in the sign wan taken in 1900.
Enlarge the photo of the sign below and read it. Seems Easterners did not believe the the huge trees existed.
The small tree in the center of the photo below is a young Sequoia. Without the guidance of a nearby sign we would not have known this was a Sequoia tree.
Time to break camp and move to the San Francisco bay area.
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