Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park

[kailuagirl]

Hi, we are planning a trip to DL and thinking of also going to Sequoia and Kings Canyon NP. How many days should we plan for Sequoia and KC? Is 2 nights enough to see everything and do a couple of the shorter hikes?

Originally we were going to go to Yosemite but decided to save that for another time.

DH wants to go to vegas after and I see it is a long drive 7 hours, yikes!! Was thinking maybe it would be better to go to Zion and Bryce instead. Which do you think a 9 year old girl would like better? Last year we did DL and Grand Canyon and loved it.

Time frame would be beginning of October.

Any advice would be great!! Thanks!!

 

[SMD]

It's like a 6 hour drive from DLR to King's Canyon, too. I don't think there's really a way to do that trip with Disney and Vegas and not have 2 long drives. You could fly into CA and out of Vegas and that would save some driving. When you say 2 nights, is that including the travel days? Because driving in would be a half day and driving out would be a half day, that leaves you about a day and a half in the park with a 2 night stay. If you did Brice/Zion you could probably fly from SNA to Vegas and then the driving portion would only be RT to Utah.

 

[StageTek]

I prefer Bryce to even Grand Canyon. If your daughter loved the GC she will love Bryce.
There are several easy and very beautiful hikes there. Zion is spectacular.

The drive from DL to Sequoia and Kings Canyon is a little over 5 hours. Two night means
only one full day there. Enough for a couple of the shorter hikes but not enough to see
everything. It sure is a long drive from Sequoia to Vegas. But then if you were to go
Anaheim to Zion it's about the same.

 

[bcla]

It's going to be rather cold in October. There might even be some light snow. If your main interest is in the major sequoia groves (Grant Grove and Giant Forest) near parking, you probably only need a day. I recommend Redwood Mountain Grove, but that's a longer hike.

My last visit there I spent four nights, but I was there to do some hiking. It was also in the summer and we hit pretty much every major area in the park accessible by car except for Mineral King (Disney has an interesting history there). We went to Giant Forest, Grant Grove, Cedar Grove, Roads End, Crystal Cave, Boyden Cavern, Roaring River Falls, Redwood Mountain Grove, Foothills, and Morro Rock. There are also areas in Forest Service land that are worth visiting.

 

[Brock552]

Or if you just want to see the giant trees. The "Trail of 100 Giants" in the Sequoia National Forest is a lot closer and pretty nice. It was only a couple hours from Bakersfield where the national park is quite a bit further.

 

[Ndusmama]

The drive from dl to Vegas will take you 3-4 hours depending on your speed and driving day. Friday traffic into Vegas is crazy with all the weekenders from California coming in. Zion is another 2-3 hours again depending on your driving day. They are doing construction in the gorge on the border of az and Utah (you leave Nevada enter Arizona then go into Utah) that cuts traffic to one lane for 14 miles and sometimes stops traffic altogether. Bryce Canyon is another hour on top of that. Driving back way out of kings canyon into Death Valley then over is a little faster to get to Vegas but you are still looking at a drive.

I personally love sequoia np (I should I grew up down the mountain) but I also love Zion np. Both are very different. Zion you can definitely do in a day (I do it several times a year), Bryce Canyon a second day. Sequoia I would give at least 3 days to get a sense of you have been there and seen it.