Molly and I hiked into Kings Canyon a couple weekends ago and it was quite sublime. Kings Canyon/Giant Sequoia National Park is about 1.5 hours east of Fresno and pretty much far from everywhere save Visalia. With far fewer roads and neither the biggest of the giant sequoias or Californian peaks, Kings Canyon is far less explored and far less trailed. The park entrance is preceded by National Forest land complete with uncrowded campgrounds (I recommend the no-fee Convict Flat area … Molly liked the sounds of Princess Campground) with a couple of nice places to jump in the South Fork of Kings River or even better is the not undiscovered but still idylic Hume Lake. There’s also some impressive sounding Boydern Caverns ripe for exploring just outside the park entrance.

Molly and I hiked in via the western entrance at the aptly named Roads End 3,000 feet up into Bubbs Creek Valley and got just one night to look around and hike out. Had we 5-6 days we could have easily continued on to Rea Lakes, a beautioful region near the park’s Eastern Sierra entrance, continued on over a still-snowbound 11,500 pass which would place us in Paradise Valley than runs westerly back to Roads End. In fact that seemed to be the route of choice for most people we saw. Though we had to drive all the way back to SF the day after got there, it was especially revitalizing seeing how so many people were able to pause their lives and take a summer week and explore the geographic wonders that exist so close to our lives.

Everywhere we went rivers were cresting with hige waterflow due to the exceptionally heavy late snow season and afternoon thunderstorms. Nonetheless, rattlesnakes were twice spotted within 50 yards of where we stood (though fortunately neither were spotted by us ;) and the mosquitos never got that bad. The canyons, however, which could more aptly be called thin valleys we’re sublime. Walls of granite soaring for 3,000 feet on both sides leading up to high meadows that sit beneath the shadows of 12,000+ foot peaks. While the Lake tahoe are peaks max out just above 10,000 feet, the southern High Sierras, home to the nearby Mt. Whitney (14,505 feet), have coutless peaks above 12,000ft and too many to list above 13,000. Most of which were within 40 miles of where we camped.

Finally, any trip to the area undoubtedly has time for a meditative walk through stand of Giant Sequioas. Standing like beetles at the base of 2,000 year old tree will humble the biggest ego. Germinating before the Christian era, maturing before the Magna Catra and dominating well before the European discovery of North America, these organisms have lived through it all. It resets my compass everytime I’m among them.

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