# Kings Canyon National Park — a glacier-carved canyon and the Nation’s Christmas Tree Canonical: https://sockmonkey.com/places/kings-canyon-national-park (this is a plain-text copy of that page) Source: https://sockmonkey.com/places/kings-canyon-national-park Publisher: SockMonkey.com (https://sockmonkey.com) Part of: The Field Guide - https://sockmonkey.com/places/ Cite as: SockMonkey.com - sockmonkey.com Last reviewed: 13 November 2026 Part of The US National Parks - **Where:** Sierra Nevada, central California - **Coordinates:** 36.74° N, 118.96° W (Kings Canyon Visitor Center, Grant Grove) - **General Grant Tree:** Second-largest tree by volume, 46,608 cubic feet of trunk - **Cedar Grove:** Glacial valley at 4,600 ft, usually open May to mid-November - **Protected:** General Grant National Park 1890;, Kings Canyon National Park 1940 - **With Sequoia:** 1,353 square miles together, 97% wilderness - **Advisory:** United States, (no State Department level) ## The short answer Kings Canyon National Park lies in the Sierra Nevada of central California, about an hour and a quarter from Fresno’s airport, and is run as one unit with its neighbour, Sequoia National Park. It has two very different faces. In the west is Grant Grove, home of the General Grant Tree. In the east is Cedar Grove, a deep, glacier-carved valley on the South Fork of the Kings River, with towering cliffs, waterfalls and meadows. Beyond both lies a vast roadless high country. The grove became a tiny national park in 1890; the canyon was added and the whole renamed Kings Canyon National Park in 1940. ## Why it's worth knowing A valley carved by ice. Cedar Grove, at 4,600 feet, is a glaciated valley formed much like the famous one in Yosemite: towering granite cliffs, tumbling waterfalls and the Kings River rushing through the canyon it helped cut. Ridges running west from the Sierra crest, the Goddard and Monarch divides, carry mountains above 13,000 feet. A few miles outside the park the canyon grows deeper and steeper still. Where the river’s South and Middle forks meet, at 2,260 feet, Spanish Peak rises to 10,051 feet above them, which may make it, for a short stretch, the deepest canyon in North America. No road crosses the mountains from west to east anywhere in the two parks. The second-biggest tree on Earth. The General Grant Tree holds about 46,608 cubic feet of wood in its trunk alone, second only to the General Sherman in neighbouring Sequoia. The biggest sequoias stand as tall as a 26-storey building, and are wider at the base than many city streets. A paved loop of a third of a mile winds past it, the Fallen Monarch, a hollow sequoia lying on its side, and the Gamlin Cabin. Each December, on the second Sunday of the month, people still come up the mountain for the “Trek to the Tree” carol service that began in 1925. The only living shrine. In 1956 President Eisenhower declared the General Grant Tree a National Shrine, in memory of the men and women of the armed forces who served and died for the nation. It is the only living national shrine in the United States. One of the early superintendents put the tree’s appeal plainly, calling it “a pillar that is a testimony that things of the spirit transcend those of the flesh.” ## The field notes ### Four square miles, then a canyon On September 25, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the act creating Sequoia National Park. One week later its neighbour was born: General Grant National Park, just four square miles of parkland around a grove of giant sequoias, created to save them from logging. It stayed that size for half a century. In 1940 Congress added the great canyon of the Kings River and the high country behind it, and the little park became Kings Canyon National Park. In those early years there was no Park Service at all, and from 1891 to 1913 cavalry troopers came from San Francisco each summer to guard the parks. They included Buffalo Soldiers led by Charles Young, who in 1903 became the first Black military superintendent of a national park. ### The stumps of Big Stump Not every grove was saved in time. Most of the old-growth giant sequoias in the area that became the parks, and in the forest around them, were cut between about 1883 and 1891. Near the park entrance on Highway 180, Big Stump Grove keeps the site of the Smith-Comstock Mill and its logging camp. Several of the old stumps are still there, broad as rooms, with young sequoias that seeded themselves afterwards growing up around them. Tree rings show that many of the giants felled here were only 500 to 600 years old, young for a sequoia. ### Many peoples' homelands These mountains are the homelands of the Mono (Monache), Yokuts, Tübatulabal, Paiute and Western Shoshone. They have used, tended and valued the high Sierra in many ways for generations, and their descendants still care for the land that is now inside the parks. **A relic from Kings Canyon National Park** The Christmas wreath at the foot of the General Grant Tree. At the Trek to the Tree, park rangers place the traditional wreath at the base of the trunk. It is a ring of green that looks the size of a saucer against a tree as wide at the base as a city street. The custom has held through snow and closed roads. In 1971 a storm shut the road and the service had to be held outside the park, but a handful of campers still made it up to watch the rangers place it. One man who had been at the first service in 1925 had not missed one in fifty years. ## Getting there How to get there. Highway 180 enters Kings Canyon National Park from the west, from Fresno, at the Big Stump Entrance; Fresno Yosemite International Airport is about an hour and a quarter from that entrance. Grant Grove lies just inside, at 6,600 feet. Cedar Grove is about 30 miles further east along Highway 180, about an hour from the Big Stump Entrance. Coming from Sequoia National Park’s Ash Mountain Entrance on Highway 198, via Visalia, adds about two hours to reach Grant Grove and three hours to reach Cedar Grove. There are no fuel or electric-car charging stations in the park. No reservation is needed to enter. When to go. Grant Grove is open all year; summers there bring warm days and cool nights, winters deep snow. The road into Cedar Grove is usually open from May to early or mid-November, depending on the weather. Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. The Big Stump Entrance can be icy in winter, and the parks’ road and conditions pages list closures and chain controls. ## Common questions #### What is the Nation's Christmas Tree? The General Grant Tree in Kings Canyon National Park. President Coolidge named the giant sequoia the Nation’s Christmas Tree in 1926, after a carol service first held at its foot on Christmas Day 1925. #### How big is the General Grant Tree? It is the second-largest tree in the world by volume. The General Grant Tree, in Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park, holds about 46,608 cubic feet of wood in its trunk, behind only the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park. #### Are Sequoia and Kings Canyon the same park? Two parks, run as one. Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park in California are managed together by the National Park Service, and cover 1,353 square miles between them. #### Why is it called Kings Canyon? For the canyon of the Kings River. Kings Canyon National Park takes its name from the glacier-carved valley of the South Fork of the Kings River at Cedar Grove, added to the old General Grant National Park in 1940. #### Is Kings Canyon the deepest canyon in North America? Possibly, for a short stretch. Just outside Kings Canyon National Park, where the South and Middle forks of the Kings River meet at 2,260 feet, Spanish Peak rises to 10,051 feet above them. #### When is Cedar Grove open? Usually from May to early or mid-November. Cedar Grove, the canyon at the heart of Kings Canyon National Park, is reached by Highway 180, about 30 miles east of Grant Grove, and its road closes for the winter. #### Is the General Grant Tree a national shrine? Yes, the only living one in the United States. President Eisenhower declared the General Grant Tree in Kings Canyon National Park a National Shrine in 1956, in memory of the nation’s armed forces. What to pack: the Road trips kit ## Related places Sequoia National Parkalso in The US National Parks · about 30 km away Yosemitealso in The US National Parks · about 120 km away Death Valley National Parkalso in The US National Parks · about 190 km away Pinnacles National Parkalso in The US National Parks · about 200 km away The Grand Canyonalso in The US National Parks · about 620 km away ## Sources and notes Written and checked by SockMonkey.com · last reviewed 13 November 2026 - [The National Park Service](https://www.nps.gov/seki/)