Kings Canyon / General Grant Grove & Hume Lake

Fresno to Kings Canyon National Park | Camping in Sequoia National Forest | Hiking the Grant Grove Trail | Hume Lake | December 2025

After our time in Yosemite, we descended down into the valley to run a couple of errands before heading back up to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. As we lost elevation, we once again found ourselves going from clear skies in the mountains down into the fog filled valley. We deposited bottles and cans, got groceries and gas, and had In-N-Out for lunch in Fresno. I was especially excited that we had finally returned to Aldi territory for the first time since being in the Midwest. That really helped to keep our grocery bill lower despite being in California! We had also learned to look for gas stations that charge less when you use cash. After a few hours in the fog, we were more than ready to return to the mountains and the sunshine!

We took CA-180 East towards the mountains. Curtis had been hoping to get a short hike in to a prominent peak, but when we arrived we found it to be on private property. Instead, we continued driving up into Sequoia National Forest where we found a dispersed spot about a half hour from the national park. As soon as we had the van set up, we went for a walk on a seemingly abandoned forest road, enjoying the views of the sea of clouds filling the valley and trying to figure out what the different peaks were that we could see in the distance. We enjoyed a lovely sunset before calling it a night.

In case you’re wondering, what does ‘calling it a night’ look like when the sun goes down by 5 and we have several more awake hours in our tiny van before we go to bed? Well, it starts with me making dinner, which we enjoy with some fun non-caffeinated drink, which this trip has alternated between Shirley Temples and Poppi, which we had been finding for super cheap at Grocery Outlet. Tonight, since we had a bigger lunch at In-n-Out, we just had snacks (veggies and hummus, string cheese, crackers…we could call it charcuterie to sound adult, or we could just admit that we eat like 5 year olds). After eating, I do dishes and put everything away because there isn’t room for things to just sit out, and being proactive about cleaning up all food scraps reduces the concern of rodents or pests getting in — which we were amazingly not having a problem with at all this trip! Then, we’ll do a number of activities until we retire to the bed. If we have phone signal, as we did tonight, we’ll work on planning out the next day or two, we’ll work on this blog or other work that needs doing, I edit pictures, we’ll play games, and sometimes we’ll watch things online. We don’t pay for any streaming services, so we had been watching the Ken Burns American Revolution documentary for free on PBS. But sometimes we’ll also watch free with ads movies on YouTube. Tonight I saw that Prince of Egypt was on, so we had a little nostalgia watch while I edited pictures. If we don’t have service, we do more reading, either physical books we’ve borrowed or gotten from Little Free Libraries or digital loans on the Libby app. I had also found a Sodoku book at a Little Free Library that I slowly worked through throughout this trip. Whether we have service or not, we usually end up in bed by 9, read some more, and have lights out by 10. It’s all very relaxing and cozy, so much so that our winter night routines in the van have become something I crave throughout the rest of the year.

The next morning, we continued heading up the highway to Kings Canyon National Park. While there had only been some patchy snow on the valley floor and in the shade in Yosemite, there was quite a bit more here, mostly piled on the side of the road and on North-facing slopes. We came to realize how fortunate we were that it was a warmer December, mostly so that we could carry on with our plans to drive the General’s Highway and not have to go up and down the mountains to reach both Kings Canyon and Sequoia.

That being said, only the General’s Grove section of Kings Canyon was open for the season. We began our visit at the visitor center, inquiring about what roads and trails were closed, and learned about where we could camp. After picking up some postcards, a Nat Geo map of the area, and watching the film, we set off to begin our time exploring the park. We drove over to the General Grant Grove, hoping to catch a ranger talk here, but it ended up not happening. Instead, we first walked the interpretive loop trail around the General Grant tree and started learning about the giant sequoias, and then went for a longer hike on the Northern loop trail. All this totaled about 3.5 miles and wasn’t too strenuous, making it a great introduction to the park. Here is our Alltrails recording for this hike if you are interested.

From our short time talking with the ranger and studying the maps, we were starting to gather that the best way to really enjoy this park would be to go backpacking in the back country — which we obviously weren’t ready to do now, in the snow and the cold. Also, the road leading into the backcountry was already closed for the season, limiting how much we could do. And so we took the advice from the ranger and drove down to Hume Lake, which was one of the only roads that was cleared, and provided us with excellent views of the Sierras. If we hadn’t already thought we needed to return someday to go backpacking, this definitely convinced us!

When we arrived at Hume Lake, we gathered snacks from the van and went to sit on the dock in the sun. We enjoyed the warmth, the tranquility of the lake, and watching a duck swim circles around us. When we were finished, I stayed on the dock to read in the sun while Curtis set out on the trail that went around the lake. He first started out just looking for a letterbox, but ended up walking around the entire lake. There were lots of signs explaining the historic significance of the area, from a logging boom town to its current status as a natural retreat. The entire loop is 3.5 miles long, and you can see a trail recording here.

When we were finished here, we continued on the forest road through the town of Hume and went in search of a spot to camp that evening. We found a few viable options, but ultimately just decided we were content staying in a wide spot to the side of the road. Curtis went on a short hike up to an insignificant peak, and we settled in to the van for the evening when it grew dark. We didn’t have cell signal at this spot, which meant less screens and more reading and Sodoku.