Kings Canyon Scenic Drive

At Azalea Campground, Kings Canyon NP

   

The story of Kings Canyon starts with a glacier and river which cut out the canyon.  As we passed along California Highway 180, we quickly left the small portion of Kings Canyon at Grants Grove and entered the Sequoia National Forest.  The road eventually winds down from over 6,000 feet to the 4,000 foot level.  The canyon walls close in on the highway, which runs along the Kings River.  The three shots above show the river in its fast, furious form…and then a much calmer form. 

Here is a panoramic shot of us at the 6,000 foot level, the road winding down in the middle of the picture a thousand feet below.  The highway continues to the left of this picture, winds down the middle, then eventually cuts right into Kings Canyon just to the right of that largest mountain.  What a view!

Now we are around the 5,000 foot level, and the road can be seen to the far right, still heading down.  In the middle of the picture is the middle fork of the Kings River, and at the bottom it is being joined with the south fork of the Kings River, which can barely be seen just below the road.

Further down the road, and just before entering Kings Canyon, we see this waterfalls which dries up in another month or two, and I could not find a name for it, but it is part of Redwood Creek.

Now we have entered Kings Canyon…not the National Park, just the entrance to the canyon…we have another 9 miles before we re-enter the park in the main area of the park (not just the Grant Grove area where we are camping).  In the picture above, if you click on it and look closely at the larger picture that comes up, the water fall the picture above is in the upper left corner of this picture.

 

    

   

For the next 8 miles we were just in awe…the canyons, the fast running water…the first three pictures of this blog were taken in this area too.  And then we came upon the best waterfall of the day….Grizzly Falls, which, with a “s” on the end means that it is a cascading falls.

This is the view of Grizzly Falls from when I got out of the car.  Although the path to a better view of the falls is somewhat ADA accessible, Marcia did not want to walk it, and she did not want me to get the GoGo out since she had such a good view from the car.

And it was probably good she stayed, because the last 30 feet to get a good view was not ADA at all, as you can see as this man walks two kids back down hand in hand avoiding all the rocks.

A little patience to wait until everyone gets out of my view finally pays off with a good shot of the falls.  However, the mist did put some water on the lens, which you can see in the upper right and upper left of the picture where little circles seem to appear in the trees.

    

We got to the main portion of Kings Canyon National Park, and frankly, it was a little of a letdown after all the views we had in Sequoia National Forest along Highway 180, Kings Canyon Scenic Byway, to get to this point.  That is not saying we did not like Kings Canyon National Park…but getting there was better than being there.

    

This main portion of Kings Canyon, Cedar Grove area, has four campgrounds, Sheep Creek, Sentinel, Canyon View, and Moraine.  Only one was open today, but all will be open by Memorial Day.  Three take reservations.  So combined with the area of Kings Canyon that we are in at Grant Grove, there are eight campgrounds for RVs within the National Park…all costing $18 per day, $9 with the senior discount card, and you can put it on credit card.  There are dump stations in each area, but non open this time of year.  It is a 34 mile drive from Grant Grove to the end of the road at Copper Creek Trailhead.  The speed limit is 35 mph most of the way, 25 in a few small places.  It took us three hours to make the round trip, and that was after going to the Panoramic View near Grant Village, which is a one-lane road which climbs about 1,000 feet, with a half mile round trip hike to the point.

This is the panoramic view…which is of some of the area we traveled today.  It is a nice view…but the drive is well worth the time.