General Grant Gove at Kings Canyon
If you haven't checked out day one or day two of this trip, you can go read that then come back here. For our third and final day at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, we knew it was time to check out the Kings Canyon side. Since we were staying in Three Rivers, we had two options of getting there: we could go in through the Sequoia entrance and along Generals Highway to Grant Grove. This would be about an hour and fort-five minutes of windy but picturesque scenic driving. The other option was to head back towards town and around to the Kings Canyon entrance. While I am ALL for the scenic route, those dealing with motion sickness up and down the mountain were pleading to not go back up for our final day. So we chose to go around and hopefully make their drive more pleasant.
Unfortunately google maps had us avoid tolls and take J12, which was a BACK COUNTRY type of road. This felt worse than the switch backs, and even was affecting me. Somehow he made it through that drive and ended up recuperating at an overlook while we waited for our audio book to finish downloading since we had a sliver of service.
When we were ready, we finished driving to The Big Stump Grove. This was on our list of must visits. We first ate lunch, then headed on the trail.
On this trail we came across so many unique stumps. This one was crazy because you could climb in it or climb up and and look down. Going the exterior was easier and had less bugs.
When we were back to the car, we headed to Grant Grove Village. We first went to the post office to drop of some post cards, checked out a few shops, and rewarded ourselves with some treats. Properly fueled, we then headed to see Grant Grove.
By this point we were all done for the day. Instead of going back down the horrible round about way, we took Grant Highway, which is only open in the summer. With our completed audio book downloaded and smoother roads to drive on, it turned into a much better drive on the way back with more amazing views. You could see the smoke as big as a cloud from the prescribed burn, too.
This was our last night in Three Rivers! The next day we headed for the coast. You can check out the video from this day below, and then come back next week to see more!