Kings Canyon

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We spent a few nights at beautiful Kings Canyon. First we stayed on the national park campsite at Grant Grove high up. Here we had a wonderful walk along a pine ridge with spectacular veiws over the Sierra Nevada (sprinkled with snow on the peaks!) in one direction, and the pine covered foothills and flat Fresno valley the other side. It was sunny in the day, but became freezing cold at night. I was sleeping in several layers of clothes in the van! Also, we f

ound that walking at the high altitude made us get breathless and tired quickly.

Next day we drove down into the canyon, where we had another lovely walk beside the river in the valley looking up at the high rugged canyon walls. This didnt make us breathless like the walk high up. We camped free in the national forest here, which was much warmer at night, being lower. We could hear the crickets again in the evening.

The wonderful thing about american campsites in both national parks and national forests is that each plot gets a picnic table and a fire pit. They have warnings about the fire risk and ask you to be careful, but seem to accept that people like to have campfires, and regulate rather than ban them. In national park sites you also get a big metal lockable box to keep you food safe from the bears, and there are lockable trash bins to keep the rubbish safe from the bears.

(There is a bear near the river in one of these photos. Your challenge is to try and spot him before he spots you!)

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