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Welcome to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park! Sequoia and neighboring Kings Canyon National Park, located in eastern California, extend from the San Joaquin Valley foothills to the crest of the Sierra Nevada. If trees could be kings, their royal realms would be in these two adjoining parks. Sequoia was the second national park designated in this country. General Grant National Park, the forerunner of Kings Canyon, was third. From immense mountains to sweeping foothills, deep canyons to extensive caverns... all these and the world’s largest trees! These parks aremonuments to nature's size, beauty, and diversity.Park activities, facilities, and landscapes vary tremendously by season and by elevation.

Grant Grove houses the General Grant Tree, which is the Nation's Christmas Tree and our only living national shrine, commemorating those Americans who lost their lives in war. This giant sequoia and its neighbors were initially protected in the 4 square-mile General Grant National Park; Big Stump Basin was added in 1958 and allows visitors in the Grant Grove area to compare the remnants of destroyed sequoias with nearby giants. "A rival to Yosemite," wrote John Muir, describing the canyon of the Kings River. This glaciated valley in which Cedar Grove lies presents travelers along the highway with towering granite cliffs, tumbling waterfalls, and a powerful river.

With its mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, the area around the Foothills Visitor Center at Ash Mountain supports life forms that are very different from those found higher in the Sierra Nevada. Ash Mountain is the headquarters for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and also for the Sequoia Natural History Association, a non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting educational and scientific activities in these parks. Crystal Cave, a beautifully decorated marble cavern, is located on a spur road off the Generals Highway between Ash Mountain and the Giant Forest. Mineral King Valley, an open glacial canyon hemmed in by the peaks of the Great Western Divide, has a special place in the hearts of many park visitors. Accessible only by a long, slow-going road, the valley is a place where nature, not man, dominates. For many years, the area was a designated game refuge within the national forest.