Best Nature Trips Trails in Kings Canyon National Park

Great trail with lots of Giant Sequoias. The 2 mile dirt road to get to the trail head looked like it was recently graded so no major potholes, would be easy to get to in a low car. The start of the trail is a gradual downhill and then it's a gradual uphill. With a backpack I was a little out of breath, but really wasn't too steep or difficult. Lots of great trees and scenic spots with small steam crossings. We turned left at the fork and camped along Redwood Creek. Luckily, not very many mosquitoes. We were planning on doing the sugarbowl trail loop back, but got a late start and just did the redwood creek trail back up. That was a gradual uphill, but not too difficult. Watch out for patches of little pine cones, I slipped on those buggars.

Great early season/beginner backpacker hike! We hiked up past Mist Falls to camp at Lower Paradise Valley on May 4th. Lots of steps but beautiful views along the way! The campsite has a large, flat, forested area very close to the South fork of the Kings River. Bear box/locker provided! It was cool in the 40s at night but there was a designated campfire area we took advantage of.
The following day we day hiked up through Middle Paradise Valley (where there is a rustic toilet!). This was much flatter than the previous days hike but also had some sandy sections were the trail was a little hard to find...we made it to Upper Paradise Falls to see the bridge washed out (we didn’t take the time to look but rumor has it there may be a log crossing in the area...?)
The third day we hiked back and saw a rattlesnake! Saw a handful of hikers along the way. No bears. Only a few bugs. Can’t wait to do the Rae’s Lakes Loop now!

Definitely not a trail for someone out of shape. You climb 5300 ft (1 mile) vertical over the first 8 miles. There is no gradual start to the hike. Be propared to work from the start. There are half a dozen or so streams on the way up with multiple lakes / ponds once up at the pass. The view is beautiful.

We did this trail in May. Took us about 4 and a half hours. It was clearly marked and very well maintained. We did have to crawl over a couple of downed trees but it was before Memorial Day which begins the busy season, the NPS had already cleared out most everything else in the trail, We really took our time to stop and take pics and enjoy it. It was beautiful, the redwoods were stunning and the dogwoods were blooming, just MAGIC! The canyon views were breathtaking. It was a Saturday and we met a few other hikers but not many. We want to try Hart next!

I actually enjoyed this trail. The small little meadows were nice. The bad side is you can either hear the all the vehicles or you are beside the road. It was a nice warm up hike.

Nice walk with some gradual changes in elevation. Not very well marked.

It’s so gorgeous there !!!!! Loved loved loved it!!!!!!

Caltrans has reopened Highway 180 past Hume that morning, so we decided to drive down to do this hike. Hike is easy and flat. The hike to the Roaring River Falls goes alongside the highway. Lots of bugs on Zumwalt trail. Very beautiful and peaceful hike and not many people on the trail. Highly recommend!

Was a beautiful, relatively easy trail with multiple large groves of Sequoias. Greatly enjoyed this hike!

Stumbled across this trail while visiting King’s Canyon back at the end of January. A lot of the Park was closed due to snowy roads but we stumbled across this one and fit in one last hike before the end of the day. Easy 40 mins up to the peak and back down right at sunset. Easily made our day as we had our 2 yr old with us.

This trail is Awesome! The Hart tree loop is really fantastic. Lots of sequoias, lots of cool things to see. Fairly easy, not a ton of up and down that I remember. We backpacked it and slept on the much less-loved section beyond the Junction for Hart and sugarbowl. If you look at the TOPO map and not the alltrails map, it will show an additional trail that follows redwood creek further down the valley. There are less redwoods in this section of the trail, and it is not as recently maintained, but It is beautiful.

Several river crossings, and lots to see.

A lovely summer week in the Sierra - one of the best! The lakes were glassy in the mornings and reflected the surroundings flawlessly. We did the loop clock-wise. There were lots of rattlesnakes up to Paradise Meadows.

Great hike through forests, creeks and some excellent mountain views from the Sugar Bowl Trail ridge. I had done the Hart Tree Loop a few times, and decided to do the full 10 mile loop today.

No more snow on the trail as of today, but still some occasional fallen trees and debris that require light scrambling to get over. The dirt road to the trail head had some bumpy spots, but no muddy "bogs" that risked my compact SUV (2 wheel drive) getting stuck.

In the spring the crowd was fairly light. I'm sure in the summer it will get much busier. The only downside is that the drought from years past has left its mark of dead/dying trees (esp. on the Eastern/Hart side) that don't fully "brighten" up the landscape. But still very beautiful.

absolutely amazing one of the best things iv ever done

Trail head is located at the back of the west parking lot. Make sure you stay left on the sunset trail. If you take the north loop trail, it’s very hard to find your way to the lake. We did it but we added two miles to the entire trip and had to make our own trail at times. You can see the lake off the sunset trail. At the lake it says no fishing but we went in late March so no one was there. Also no fish there lol This hike is rated as easy but it’s more like moderate to hard. Good hike overall with very little foot traffic.

Quite the hike. My 10 y/o, 12 y/o, wife and myself completed this March 31, 2018. We had a low clearance vehicle so we used a parking lot a good ways above the road in and hiked down to the road and off to the trail. Absolutely zero people from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lots of snow still so it was nice and tough but magical underneath all those beautiful trees. Bucket list type spot!!

Ok so people!!!! Here is some advice that no one has shared, the road when out of season about 3 miles before trail head is completely unkept, big fallen trees, washed out trail. You have to have a 4x4 vehicle with atleast all terrain tires. I stopped and hiked the 3 miles of road just to get to the trail. Also the trail has some really hard spots that were covered by 1-2 feet of snow. That can make your life miserable. This was a HARD trail when you add fighting through the snow. Otherwise amazing views and awesome air quality! Nice break from the air in the valley.

so much snow I had snow coming out my ears lol it was awesome!!! the hike was very beautiful and breathtaking amazing views of some of nature's spectacular creations the giant sequoias are truly a sight to behold!!!!

An super awesome trail, I can remember seeing a reflection of the Milky Way in Littel Rae lake Along side of Fin Dome!!!! In2000 Can’t wait to get back there this summer!!!

I was looking for a trail during a solo Kings/Sequoia 3 day trip and wanted to look into a nice hike I can spend majority of the day with. I picked Mist Falls over all the other trails because of the end point being a nice waterfall. Growing up near Joshua Tree NPS I anticipated the trail to be fairly barren (meaning not much to look at) until the end of the trail but this trail proved otherwise and not disappoint! The first chunk of the trail has light shade and is fairly flat, then you shift into a denser forest before you get granted with a nice walk along the Kings River. The overflow from the river does feed into the trail, which forces you to maneuver a bit more off trail expected but it was easy to find your way back. Dense forest goes into fairly open canyon stone trail with a bit of elevation gain that increases in intervals. The last mile of the trail does get a bit strenuous if you're not careful with heat and your own pacing. The waterfall, however, does not disappoint and you're treated with a nice view of the canyon.
Round trip took about 5-6 hours including a short picnic at the end of the trail. Waterproof hiking shoes and bug spray are highly recommended!

Lost GPX file so had to draw it out. Much more strenuous than the 17 miles (GPX file read ~25 miles) and 5000 vertical feet described. First and last 6 miles (on trail up to Lamarck Col and down from Muriel Lake) are fine but everything in between is scrambling, talus, shale, route finding. All class 3, sometimes having to take off packs etc. Still worth it for the views of Darwin Canyon if you don't have time for the 55 mile North Lake to South Lake loop. Doable in 3 days but don't underestimate the route finding/talus/boulder fields.

Did this one as a kid and that was a long time ago...

Finished in 2014 what I started in 2012. A "must do" for any backpackers' bucket list

Did this trail with my wife in early February, was un seasonable warm for this time of year. Great hike with giant trees. my GPS tracker said that the hike ended up being about 8 miles. we saw hundreds of lady bugs near the fallen tree bridge.

This trail is a best kept secret at Kings Canyon National Park!!! First of all, driving back to this trail has more beautiful grand views, than any views in Yosemite or Sequoia National Parks. The first half of the trail has just enough mosquitoes to drive you crazy but its easy to speed through high mosquito zone. The second half of the trail opens up and has some of the best canyon views of a fast flowing river I have ever seen. The views of the falls at the end of the trail make it well worth toughing out the mosquitoes.

Definitely more snow then anticipated but it made this short hike more of a fun adventure. The top was beautiful.

Not too difficult but by far, one of my favorite hikes......you better like stairs though! Make sure to pick a warm day to do this trek because it'll add to the overall beauty while keeping you energized to continue.

aside from getting eaten alive by bugs, it was a fantastic hike.

fun trail with a good payoff at the end. Great drive up to the trailhead as well.

One of the best views for such a short hike.