Changes to Some Opening/Closing Dates for Services and Facilities – Check Back for Updates
Some of the opening/closing dates for facilities and visitor services in the parks have changed due to weather and/or other circumstances. See link for details and match to locations on the park map (under "Park Tools," bottom left, this page).
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Road Conditions (Entire Park) and Road Construction Delays (if Entering/Exiting Hwy. 198)
Expect 20-minute to 1-hour construction delays on main road through parks (Generals Hwy) until Memorial Day weekend (7 a.m.-6 p.m.). See link for schedule. Call for 24-hour road conditions info: 559-565-3341 (press 1, 1, 1).
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Vehicle Length Limits Have Changed in Sequoia NP (if Entering/Exiting Hwy 198)
Planning to see the "Big Trees" in Sequoia National Park? If you enter/exit via Hwy. 198, please pay close attention to new vehicle length advisories for your safety and the safety of others.
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You May Have Trouble Calling Us. Use the "Contact Us" Link (Bottom Left) to Send an E-mail.
We are experiencing technical problems receiving some incoming phone calls at the parks. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please keep trying to reach us or check this website for frequently-asked questions. The search box (top, right) may be helpful.
Prescribed Fires Planned at Ash Mountain/Sequoia National Park (Parks' South Entrance)
Fire crews will be working on hazard fuel reduction project at Ash Mountain (south entrance) starting May 23. There are nine small burn segments near the south entrance. The fire may be visible from the road and will produce smoke for very short periods.
This video demonstrates how and when to install tire chains and/or cables on vehicles when visiting Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, CA. (MPEG/mp4)
Matt Fagan, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
Anywhere in the High Sierra, you could get snow any month of the year.
Granted you’re probably not going to have as much in June, July and August, but that can occur.
One thing that visitors should definitely make sure they have with them, when they come to snow country in California, is chains for the tires.
It’s a good idea to make sure you have chains any time of the year but there are some times of the year you would be required to carry chains. When you are entering an area that requires chains, you will see a sign that says “chains required.”
In California, we have designations of R1, R2 and R3.
R1 means that you do need chains on your vehicle unless you have snow tires. Many cars have all-weather tires which count as snow tires. Looking on your tire, if you see a designation M+S or M/S or if there is a snowflake insignia that means they are all-weather tires and they can be used in mud and snow.
R2 means that if you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle that is fine. Other vehicles that are not four-wheel-drive need to carry and actually put the chains on the vehicle.
R3 is when we have extremely heavy snowfall, and that means all vehicles, regardless if they are four-wheel-drive or not, are required to have chains on the tires.
The signs usually go up right by a turnout or an area that is a pull-off on the road where you can safely pull off and put the chains on the tires.
Don’t pass that area up, because there is a reason the area was set up with a sign because the pullouts in some cases may be the only place where you can pull out safely before you get into the snow and ice.
When you are driving with chains on, don’t go more than 25 miles per hour- no matter what the posted speed limit may be.
Chains are just like clothes. You wouldn’t go to the store if you didn’t know your size of the pants you wear and just buy any pants off the rack. You make sure you have the right size. Same thing with tires; chains have a certain size for a certain tire.
Buy or rent your chains or cables before you get to the snow. Many communities around the mountains rent and sell chains or cables.
We suggest actually trying to put them on the tires at home or in dry conditions, just so you get comfortable and familiar with how the chains go on the vehicle, so you can sort of practice, for when you get up to where you must put the chains on. Then you won’t have to spend a lot of time trying to figure that out because it’s probably going to be colder than where you are when you bought the chains, too.
[Music]
Follow manufacturer’s instructions on how to install chains/cables, or have someone help you.
Be sure to put chains/cables on the drive wheels.
For example:
If you have a front-wheel drive car, place them on the front wheels. Be sure to fasten them snugly around the tire and to close the clasps completely. You can be cited if you do not have chains/cables when they are required.
[Music]
People come up here to enjoy the winter. We get a lot of people that come up to snowshoe or cross-country ski. But we also get a lot of people that come up here just to sightsee because they may not be familiar with snow, or they are traveling through the area and they say “I’d love to see the giant trees. I never know when I’ll be back here in this part of the country again, and I understand the roads are open so we can actually go up and see the trees, even though it’s winter.”
It’s a great time to just come up and enjoy the serenity in the High Sierra in the snow and the trees and just enjoy relaxing up here.
Did you know that the Number #1 cause of death here is drowning?
(scene and sounds of people playing in the Paradise Creek pool)
Riverbanks crumble without warning. Rocks are slippery. Calm water looks enticing, but underneath swift currents can sweep you away in seconds. Once you fall in, getting out is nearly impossible.
(Zoom out from Deadly River poster)
Be extra careful near water. Stay on land if the water is cold and currents strong!
Don't drink and swim. It's a recipe for disaster.
Enjoy your visits safely, so you can come back again!
A message from your neighbors at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
For more information, visit or call http://www.nps.gov/seki (559) 565-3341
Anunciador: ¿Sabía usted que la causa Número #1 de muerte es el ahogamiento?
Las orillas de los ríos se desmoronan sin previo aviso. Las rocas son resbalosas. El agua tranquila parece atrayente, pero por debajo corrientes fuertes pueden arrasarlo(a) a usted en segundos. Una vez que usted cae adentro, es casi imposible salirse.
Tenga mucho cuidado cerca del agua. ¡Manténgase en tierra firme si el agua está fría y hay corrientes fuertes!
No consuma alcohol y nade. Es una receta para un desastre.
¡Disfrute de sus visitas con seguridad, para que pueda regresar de nuevo!
Un mensaje de sus vecinos en Los parques Nacionales Sequoia y Kings Canyon…
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and the Samlout Protected Area in Cambodia are "Sister Parks." In this relationship, a non-profit organization provides funding for U.S. park rangers to train Cambodian rangers in law enforcement techniques. (MPEG/mp4)
A Bridge Between Two Worlds: Samlout Protected Area and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (13:00)
[Cambodian park rangers singing as they raise their flag]
[caption on screen under speaker] Chief Ranger Kevin Hendricks, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
I think we should be tremendously proud of exporting the National Park Service ideas and philosophies worldwide to our international partners. The National Park System is something we have done right in this country.
Protecting our nation’s treasures,
protecting our natural resources,
protecting our cultural resources.
This is something that we can really be proud of. And I think it’s something that we can really help developing countries like Cambodia with, helping them protect their resources for their future generations.
[caption on screen under speaker] Karen Taylor-Goodrich, Superintendent, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
The creation of the National Park Service represented a strong commitment to conservation. To create an agency responsible for protecting the National Park System was very significant in the history of conservation globally.
Now we have a responsibility and an opportunity to extend that legacy to help other countries realize their conservation objectives and protected-area management.
The National Park Service Sister Park Program has over three dozen relationships, and these relationships are by agreement, and they establish strong connections between local parks within a country with a unit of the National Park System, and oftentimes they’re built around similar resources or also similar needs.
One of the benefits for our Sister Park relationship in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is our relationship with a non-governmental organization, the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation. And they provide significant funding to support our Sister Park agreement.
So we’re very fortunate to have a sponsor of a non-governmental organization like that, because we don’t use congressionally-appropriated dollars to support our sister park agreements, and you have to have partnerships in order to make these kinds of things happen.
[caption on screen under speaker] Director Jon Jarvis, National Park Service
Many of these countries that are trying to establish these national park systems need just basic assistance on how they’re established, and how they work, and they frequently look to the National Park Service here in the U.S. as a guide for that.
And, for many years, we were pretty much a leader internationally in establishing these, but in recent years that had really gone into decline for a variety of reasons.
And it was nice to see this as an opportunity, not only to work in Southeast Asia but also with the support of Angelina Jolie. We knew we had pretty strong backing financially and with somebody that had a history of being an ambassador-of-goodwill; we felt this would be a positive project.
[caption on screen under speaker] Stephan Bognar, CEO, Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation
One of the greatest gifts the United States has offered the world are national parks. And working with the national parks was one of my key objectives when I first started to work at the foundation. How we can build a bridge between Cambodia and the United States Park Service?
How can the U.S.N.P.S. help the foundation, help the Cambodian government rebuild, or actually start a National Park System, so that we can guarantee the survival of the protected areas of the wilderness of the parks?
One of our largest programs is actually in northwestern Cambodia, a former Khmer Rouge territory known as Samlout. In that area, we’re focusing on one of our largest programs, actually environmental security.
How to manage the natural resources; how to protect the green spaces, whilst developing the area. Developing meaning health care providing, health care accessing, education, food security and nutrition, and food-security programs for villagers...
[caption on screen under speaker] Kevin Hendricks, Chief Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
We’ve been involved in Cambodia with Samlout Protected Area in a number of different ways. Primarily we’ve been involved assisting with training in Cambodia, training conservation officers and various other employees of Samlout Protected Area.
For the last three years we’ve sent teams of two rangers over at a time, to help them with intensive two-week training sessions, where they train new rangers and they provide refresher training to existing rangers.
[caption on screen under speaker] Jason Bauwens, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
We were able to provide them training that they don’t otherwise get due to either the cost of it, or just the access and availability of the advanced training that we may get here with the National Park Service.
While we were there, we provided training and defensive tactics, just to increase the safety of the rangers and the staff there, just to better protect themselves while dealing with some of the illegal poachers that they contact throughout the day.
We also provided firearms training, just to help them be better trained with the weapons that they carry in the field, and also specific law enforcement tactics to help them get the upper-hand on people that are conducting both illegal timber and wildlife poaching throughout Samlout Park.
Much of the Samlout Protected Area is still covered in landmines from the Khmer Rouge conflict. And much of that protected area cannot even be traveled, by vehicle or by foot, because of the unknown areas of landmines.
[caption on screen under speaker] Cathy Dalrymple, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
When I first heard about the opportunity to travel to Cambodia to meet the rangers and to help with their training, I was one of the first people to "throw my name in the hat."
I’d actually met the rangers when they came to visit earlier in the year, and I was really excited about the opportunity to get to go and visit their park.
One of the challenges that the Samlout rangers have is that the people in the neighboring communities don’t necessarily have the conservation ethic. They still do the slash-and-burn farming, which, then wildfires get into the park.
One of the biggest things that we wanted to do at the training was to give them a basis of natural resources. They translated the Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," into Khmer, and the Cambodians had never seen anything like that.
They didn’t really know about global warming, and hadn’t really heard about it, and so it had a really big impact on them, and they talked about it a lot afterwards. At one of our training sessions, we broke them up into small groups and we talked about how global natural resources issues affect them in Cambodia.
[caption on screen under speaker] Karen Taylor-Goodrich, Superintendent, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
Our Sister Park relationship with Samlout Protected Area benefits our rangers in providing an experience at the international level. They come back with a broader sense of what protected area management is in other countries, and some of the obstacles those countries have to face that may be quite different than ours here, but these kinds of skills that they bring there may be able to be applied in different ways.
So they can come back with a sense of knowing that they helped creatively resolve some of the problems and that the rangers in the other parks are better trained now.
[caption on screen under speaker] Jon Jarvis, Director, National Park Service
I have yet to experience any National Park Service employee that has gone to do a detail somewhere with the national park, in another part of the world, that hasn’t come back rejuvenated, excited about their job, happy that they’re working in this country, and with the resources that we have.
[caption on screen under speaker] Erika Jostad, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
I think my experience in Cambodia serves in some way just as a reminder to me about the way that peoples’ perceptions are different. We’ve got all sorts of different users that come into Sequoia National Park, and they have a lot of different reasons for coming here.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in things like management policies and procedures, and trying to make sure that everybody stays off the roots of the General Sherman Tree, and lose site of the awe that people have in natural places like this.
I think that being in Samlout reminds you that there are a lot of different ways to enjoy these natural places, and to be respectful and mindful of all these visitors’ different perspectives that they bring.
[caption on screen under speaker] Karen Taylor-Goodrich, Superintendent, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
If we can reach out to our neighbors in other countries to provide support for what they may want to achieve, and my counterparts in those countries, what they may want to achieve in their protected area of management, then you’re local- to-local. You’re thinking locally, but you’re acting globally.
[caption on screen under speaker] Jon Jarvis, Director, National Park Service
Soft diplomacy, and the way national parks play in that, there’s rarely any controversy over national parks. We’re not going in and negotiating a trade agreement, we’re not talking about arms reduction, we’re not talking about immigration - all these sort of tough issues.
Parks are non-partisan; they’re positive. The U.S. is looked upon as an international leader in parks because we’ve been around a long time. They look to us for inspiration, and we’ve sort of pulled it off economically. We have public support, and they want to know how to do that. So it’s kind of the perfect export in many ways.
[caption on screen under speaker] Erika Jostad, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
I absolutely think that we’ve got a responsibility to share the wealth of our resources and our knowledge with people in places like Samlout. They welcome the help that they can get, and we’ve got a lot of it that we can offer.
But it was clear to me that there is so much more to happen, and at some level, we’re at the very beginning of what we can offer each other in the way of exchanges.
[caption on screen under speaker] Jason Bauwens, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
I was amazed at the work that had been done prior to me, and the work that we were able to get done while we were there.
But I also realized that, when I came back, that just a few years of this is not enough. It’s something that needs to be ongoing, and there needs to be continued efforts from the National Park Service and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, so that we can continue to help and improve the system at Samlout Protected Area.
[caption on screen under speaker] Stephan Bognar, CEO, Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation
It’s amazing to see the look in the eyes, when they walk into an American national park. It inspires them. It motivates them.
When they come back to their own country, they’re encouraged. They’re committed to making sure that they themselves have a national park - a park to be proud of, a park that can provide services to their own local communities.
And I found that, with all of the rangers that came to Cambodia, they all were “awake.” They all understood the mission, and they were committed with us, as real partners and as friends.
[caption on screen under speaker] Erika Jostad, Park Ranger, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
So you realize that you’re part of a much bigger web of people who care deeply about natural places, and see that there are some specific important things that need to be done to protect them, and that we share common goals, and that we can help each other. And I think that’s probably the biggest thing that we all stand to gain from this kind of relationship.
[caption on screen under speaker] Stephan Bognar, CEO, Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation
Whether you’re working in a national park in Cambodia, or whether you work in a national park in the United States, we’re all connected. We’re all connected to the ecosystem. We’re all connected to this natural economy.
It’s all of our green spaces - Cambodian, American, Canadian. We are all connected, and we have a collective responsibility to protect our natural resources, to encourage people to come back to these green spaces and be courageous enough to assume their responsibility to protection.
These rangers have inspired me to want to continue our relationship with U.S.N.P.S.
[credits]
Gem of the Sierra View a 16-minute film showcasing the three unique regions of Kings Canyon National Park—the Kings Canyon, Grant Grove, and the High Sierra. Flash Video format.
Giant Forest Restoration View a short film about the amazing effort to restore an endangered sequoia grove after years of overuse. Flash Video format.
Changes are always happening in Sequoia National Park. Scientists have learned that phenophases, or life cycle stages, change in relation to climate conditions. Click on this video to see a full year of phenophases unfold before your eyes.
Credit/ Author:
Joshua Schultz/NPS
Date created:
2013-03-19
Giant Forest Restoration Project
Learn how the parks are restoring this sequoia grove.
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When first set aside, what is now Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks were less than one-ninth of their present size. Over the last century, Congress has made seven major additions to the parks — the last being the Mineral King area in 1978.
Giant Forest Restoration Project
Giant Forest webcam
