Kings Canyon National Park was our first official national park stop on our first ever Neil Peart Inspired National Park Road Trip. It all started with a love of Yosemite National park and Rush. We are long time fans of the band and I was already a fan of Neil Peart’s books in which he describes many of his visits to the national parks. Sarah loves the outdoors and was interested in visiting all the national parks so when I told her “that’s what Neil did” our plan soon evolved into a Neil Peart Inspired National Park Road Trip. When we started planning our first trip for the summer of 2018, Kings Canyon was not on the original itinerary, but when a wildfire closed Yosemite valley we had to reroute.

Liner Notes

Kings Canyon National park is located in California in the southern Sierra Nevada east of the San Joaquin Valley. It shares a border with Sequoia National Park. Kings Canyon was established as a national park on March 4, 1940 by Franklin D Roosevelt. There are two visitor centers, one in Grant Grove Village and one in Cedar Grove. The most popular time to visit the park is summer. Weekdays have lighter crowds as do late spring and early fall. Parts of the park close in the winter.

Kings Canyon has two lodges: Cedar Grove Lodge is located at the bottom of the canyon at 4600 feet and has fewer visitors than the John Muir Lodge in Grant Grove Village at 6500 feet. On a return trip with her husband in Fall 2020, Sarah stayed at the John Muir Lodge, where Neil Peart was also a former guest. They enjoyed the comfortable room and experienced friendly service. Grant Grove also offers cabins. There are several campgrounds in Grant Grove and Cedar Grove as well as group camping options. There are no RV hookups in the park. Grant Grove Village has an ATM, Post Office, market, cafe, winter equipment rentals, and gift shop.

There are many popular attractions in the park. Most notably is General Grant Grove, home of the General Grant, the second largest sequoia tree in the world, with a paved, wheelchair accessible, 0.5 mile trail through a sequoia grove. Kings Canyon Panoramic Point overlooks Hume Lake with a 0.5 mile walk with views of the valley and the Sierra Mountains. Kings Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the United States and is the location of the Cedar Grove visitor center. Here in the canyon you will also find Grizzly Falls, a 75 foot waterfall with a 0.1 mile trail and Roaring River Falls with a 0.3 mile paved trail. Also located in the valley is Zumwalt Meadow with a 1.5 mile loop trail through the lush meadow between two tall, nearly vertical, granite cliff faces. Hume lake offers boating, swimming, hiking and fishing. Guided horseback rides are available at the Grant Grove stables and at the Cedar Grove Packing Station.

Deep Tracks

Wilderness permits are available for backpacking. For the avid hiker Kings Canyon offers the following:

The Story So Far

We drove into Kings Canyon on a Sunday morning in August 2018 through the northwest entrance, arriving just as the ranger station opened. We made a quick stop at Grant Grove Village and then continued on to the General Grant sequoia. We enjoyed the loop hike through the giant sequoia grove, which we had mostly to ourselves. We were on our way down into the canyon before the first tour bus unloaded at Grant Grove. The drive down into the canyon is steep and narrow with breathtaking views. It was a little scary, but the scenery is worth the trip and there are way fewer people in the valley. At the bottom we drove along the Kings River, still full and flowing fast. Kings Canyon has been compared to Yosemite and the tall granite valley walls were reminiscent of Yosemite valley, although this time of year the river and waterfalls in Yosemite would be just a trickle. In “Traveling Music,” Neil Peart wrote that he agreed with John Muir, who said that Kings Canyon rivaled Yosemite.

We drove nearly to the end of the valley and stopped to hike the Zumwalt Meadows Loop. This was a fun, pretty trail except for the millions of bugs. These were the really buggy kind, flying in our face and hair. As we walked we made our best windmill impressions of Pete Townsend, waving our arms the entire way, which didn’t help much and made us look silly. We had intended to continue our walk to Roaring River Falls but the swarms of bugs were so bad we drove to the trailhead instead and walked the short distance to the falls, a beautiful spot with no bugs at all! Sarah scrambled over boulders down to the pool to filter a bottle of water while I sat at the top and admired the falls. On the way back we stopped for our passport stamps at Cedar Grove Village. A handmade plywood sign on the way down had promised ice cream but we didn’t find any. We headed back out of the canyon stopping once at Grizzly Falls, then back up the steep canyon, air conditioning off for safety. Our final stop was back at Grant Grove Village but by now it was swarming with visitors. Long lines and long waits squelched our chances for lunch. Instead we found a snack in the cooler and said our farewell to Kings Canyon.