Ranger Talk is not written in any official capacity relating to my employment. The ideas, beliefs, and opinions expressed here are my own as a private citizen and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Park Service or Department of Interior.
Hi friends,
The vast majority of visitors to Kings Canyon National Park only come as far as Grant Grove. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sequoia grove, but it’s almost a misrepresentation of a park whose majority acreage is designated wilderness. Thirty miles north and 2,000 feet below Grant Grove lies the park’s namesake, a glacially carved granite canyon more than 8,000 feet deep at its greatest point.
Protecting Kings Canyon was a lengthy and arduous process. When Kings Canyon National Park was established in 1940, subsuming General Grant Park within it, the new boundaries did not include the actual canyon floors along the South and Middle Forks of the Kings River. While the canyon walls were protected as parklands, Kings Canyon and Tehipite Valley were both withheld for potential hydroelectric dam sites and were not added to the park until 1965.
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A scenic byway runs from Grant Grove to Cedar Grove, a small village on the valley floor, and dead ends at a parking lot and backcountry ranger station aptly titled Road’s End. The only travel options from Road’s End are to turn around and drive back out of the canyon to exit the park or walk into the backcountry of the Kings Canyon wilderness. Cedar Grove is home to the tiniest of visitor centers, a lodge, a handful of campgrounds, and the formal park entrance sign.
The juxtaposition of Grant and Cedar Groves is what I love most about this park. We have giant sequoias just as impressive as our sister park to the south and a valley John Muir himself described as “a rival to the Yosemite,” all with a fraction of the traffic of the other two parks. You can spend the morning staring up at General Grant and drive an hour down the road in the afternoon to massive granite walls, waterfalls, and the roaring South Fork of the Kings River.
Cedar Grove is particularly special this season, because access to the village and the canyon itself has been entirely closed for nearly two years. Historic snowfall in the Sierra during the 2022-23 winter led to catastrophic flooding the following spring. Major sections of highway 180 were washed out entirely, and the road leading into the canyon remained closed for all of last summer. We regularly have visitors tell us they intended to visit the parks last year but were forced to cancel their trips due to the Cedar Grove and backcountry closures.
From floods to fires to extreme heat and extended drought, I’m often reminded here that the earth doesn’t care much for our backpacking plans and camping reservations. The familiar phrase “pack your patience” is relevant for most national park trips, but I’m learning that in the Sierra packing your flexibility is just as important. It’s hard not to wonder when we’ll have to accept that nature doesn’t want us here anymore. Until then, I won’t pretend I’m not planning my own backcountry adventures in fits of blissful denial.
The week after I arrived in the park, I drove down to the road closure and biked the rest of the way into the canyon. The repairs were long completed by then, and though not advertised, bikes and foot traffic were allowed beyond the gate during the last weeks of getting plumbing and electricity back online. It was a deceptively hard ride for a non-cyclist, but the eight miles of gradual climb to Road’s End didn’t feel so bad when I was flying along the canyon floor on my way out. It reminded me of running down the middle of Huntington Avenue with only the snowplows during Boston’s winter of 2015. There wasn’t a single car or other person around, just a roadside bursting with lupine and the rushing of spring high water as I rode the centerline.
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Both Grant and Cedar visitor centers are understaffed, which we’ve been managing by sending a Grant Grove interp ranger down to Cedar once a week on a rotating schedule. The time I’ve spent in the canyon is a slow-paced alternative to the busyness of Grant Grove. The days feel lazily relaxed. We counted 40-something visitors in the four hours I last worked the Cedar desk, a steep contrast to the thousands we see per day in Grant. The visitor center was built by the Forest Service in 1931 and feels like a trip back in time to simpler days with its one public room, small back office, and (albeit nonfunctioning) stone fireplace.
Cedar shifts are a welcome disconnect from reality without a shred of cell signal for any carrier once you get into the canyon. The Wi-Fi and power in staff offices are also notoriously bad. The closer you get to Road’s End, the stronger the mountains pull you from the silly thing we’ve defined as real life. I’m counting down the days until my August backpacking trip on the famed Rae Lakes Loop, when I won’t have to turn back and climb out of the canyon at the end of my shift but walk into the wilderness and away from technological security blankets for a full four days.
Be well, Morgan
As you play outside this summer, please remember to recreate responsibly and leave no trace.