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Kings Canyon National Park has three distinct area:  Cedar Grove, the back country and Grant Grove.  The Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon is a small enclave surrounded by the Sequoia National Forest and was formerly the General Grant National Park until around 1940 when the rest of Kings Canyon National Park was created.  At that time, General Grant National Park was incorporated into Kings Canyon.  The General Grant tree is the centerpiece of the Grant Grove part of this park. It is the third largest tree in the world. Just to boggle your mind, this tree is 267.4 feet tall, has a circumference of 107.6 feet and has an approximate volume of 47,450 cubic feet. That is a lot of wood. Fortunately for the Sequoia trees, they are very brittle, which caused them to break into unusable sections of wood when they fell. This meant a lot more work for the loggers who came into the area in the 1800's. Many of the trees were cut down for museum pieces, as people from the east coast of the United States couldn't believe trees could grow this big (the largest tree, the General Sherman's first branch is 6 and a half feet in diameter and is larger than any tree east of the Mississippi River). The trees are very high in tannin which makes them very bug resistant so they don't decay after they hit the ground. The Big Stump Basin of Kings Canyon is one area that was heavily logged in the late 1800's and is shown here. The brown patches in the meadow are not open patches of ground, but rather sawdust that has been on the ground for over 100 years! The stump to the right in the picture is probably 20 or so feet in diameter. Some of the logged stumps were big enough to conduct Sunday school on and several pioneers in the area used downed trees as horse stables or houses.
There are several other nice hikes in this part of the park, most leading from the General Grant Grove parking lot.  Another one is just north of the campgrounds, entitled the Panarama point trail.  A small narrow road leads up to the ridge separating the Grant Grove from the other high country in Kings Canyon.  A trail leads up the rest of the way to Panarama Point.  You have your choice at this point of continuing on for about 2 miles to a fire lookout station or turning around and going back to your parking lot.  Either way, the view from Panarama Point is breathtaking.  You get a view of the Great Western Divide, much like the view from Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park to the south.  Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, is still obscured by Landscape Peak however.
In 1999, the Grant Grove area was in the third year of a population explosion of the Tussock Moth.  The caterpillar of these moths eat different types of firs in the area.  At times it appeared as if it were raining Tussock Moth caterpillars.  The moth is an interesting looking little critter but it does some great damage.  Click on the moth link above to view a page about them and to see some pictures.

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This page was last updated on October 5, 2000