Kings Canyon National Park

We crossed the border from Sequoia National Park into Kings Canyon with little ado. General Grant and the giants surrounding him were designated national parks in 1890, and General Grant Grove National Park was later folded into Kings Canyon when Kings Canyon was designated in 1940. I'm curious why it was added to Kings Canyon (to which it is separated from by National Forest), when it shares a border with Sequoia National Park.

We stopped by the Village and decided to save the visit to General Grant's Grove for later and then booked it -- there was suddenly a ton of people as it was the first day of Memorial Day weekend.

We continued along the highway and decided to hike the Big Stump trail, which was more depressing than anything. The area had seen logging activity before the trees were protected. We also saw the Centennial Stump, which was cut down specifically to have a slice taken to the 1876 World's Fair in Philadelphia where the viewers immediately declared it "The California Hoax!" We also stopped by Panoramic Point which was a beautiful overlook to the High Sierra and Hume Lake.

The drive into Kings Canyon proper -- was another long and winding drive, which I hoped we would only drive once in and then once out... The overlooks were beautiful though.

We arrived at Sentinel Campground and pulled into our spot -- #1, which was actually a really big campsite, if a little close to the nearby parking lot. We decided pretty quickly that we didn’t want to stay the full five nights here we had planned originally – Vitali had two, separate, disturbing incidents in the restrooms (which had no electricity and no soap), that when combined with the previous day’s bear sighting made us more interested in the prospect of a hotel room than extra time at the park. Turns out three nights was just enough.

Other factors contributed to our increasing camp fatigue -- no cellular service anywhere, the only free wi-fi being 1.5 hrs away at Grant Grove (which was so slow we couldn’t do anything), and supposed wi-fi at Hume Lake. Also, the promise of a market in Cedar Grove Village and fresh food had enticed us and then disappointed us severely as we found it closed... the ranger said they were expecting it to open weeks later, on June 11th. I was surprised -- the campground was full, but there were no services -- the showers were closed too! Small rant: if preventing pollution of the river is so important, maybe open the showers so people aren't washing soap into the ground? We always use biodegradable soap, but still... After Memorial Day the campground did clear out a bit though.

And so we decided to drive out to Hume Lake the next morning to connect to the internet, change our campsite reservations, and book a motel. Hume Lake was about 45 minutes out of the canyon,

We got there and realized all of the civilization shown on google maps is in fact, a giant Christian Camp. Vitali went into the gas station to ask if there was free wi-fi and the attendant very kindly said "So sorry, it costs $15!" Would Jesus charge weary travelers who needed something as critical as the internet? No. He would multiply the wi-fi so all the travelers could partake.

That didn't happen so we refused to pay and drove around to the public side of the lake and at least resolved to try and catch lunch. No luck! Again. Since we were already half way there, we decided to continue on back to Grant Grove Village, another 45 minutes further, and try the wi-fi there. The village was mobbed and the bandwidth was overrun. I was able to connect long enough to adjust our campsite reservation to end two days earlier, so at least we'd get a refund for those nights, and then we could figure out the hotel later. We went to see General Grant and wandered for a bit before heading back.

That evening, a woman walked us to up at our camp -- she was going to be solo backpacking Rae Lakes (42 miles), and couldn't secure a campsite to stay the night before -- she asked if she could share our campsite and offered us $20! Of course we could share, the campsite was plenty big enough and after declining initially, accepted the cash... Hey, it paid for the night! Michelle was a really nice person from Wisconsin who made us breakfast the next morning and gave us her leftover cold groceries and then was on her way. She said she'd be in Yosemite after this so maybe we'd see her there.

On Memorial Day, we hiked to Mist Falls, which provided a great view of a glacially carved canyon, and a not so great view of the waterfall. I managed to capture a long shot through the trees though.

That afternoon we also visited Roaring Falls and hiked along the river for a bit, where more fish ignored Vitali's bait. Finally, we stopped at Muir Rock (where he would talk to anyone who would listen about the importance of preserving wilderness), and Zumwalt Meadow, which was partially closed, but was still a nice view.

On the way back to camp on our final night -- magic happened. The atmosphere was filled with pollen and as the sun set the air itself was set aflame.

With the windows down, and no people nor cars, we experienced a few minutes of perfection.

On the way out the next morning we stopped by another waterfall, Grizzly Falls, which was also beautiful.

We had left pretty early as we were looking forward to getting back to civilization and spending two nights in a motel in Fresno... But I wanted to stop and see one more thing -- Boyden Cavern. We had stopped on the way back from Hume Lake to check the signage outside the cave for more information (this is what it was like before cell phones?!) but there was no information on when tours were, only how much they cost. Speaking of life before cell phones -- we had lived with no cell reception for eight days in Sequoia and Kings Canyon -- and only by day five or six were we broken of the compulsion to check our phones.

So we gave it our best guess and rolled in at 8:45 in the morning and proceeded to wait. It's times like this that I'm thankful we have no other time restraints in our life right now. The first staff member showed up around 9:45 and turns out the first tour was at 10:30AM, of which we were able to get the last two tickets.

The tour was filled with high school kids who were as annoying as I remember myself being, so we missed out on a few of the facts about the cave but enjoyed it nonetheless. At one point, the ranger shut off all the lights and told us how after just a few hours your eyes will downregulate functioning and your other senses will already have become sharper. A teenaged girl proclaimed "I love it!" referring to the feeling of being blind... It was a relatively small cave but still had a few very interesting formations. I always love it when there's bacon...

We opted out of the 'wild cave exit', which was walking in a few inches of water to exit about 15' below the man-made entrance, but laughed at all the young people squealing as they got their toes wet.

Kings Canyon was singular. There isn't any one thing about it that I would pinpoint to how special this place was, only the feeling I had when I was there. And sometimes that's all it takes.