Product Description
One of America's deepest gorges, Kings Canyon plunges more than 8000 feet and extends nearly eleven miles in length. Pristine alpine lakes reflect the surrounding silver-grey peaks, lupine and corn lilies flourish in meadows, and giant sequoias tower in world's largest stands of these ancient trees. This is the dramatic landscape of Kings Canyon National Park, southern neighbor to the more famous Yosemite.

Cool your feet in the turbulent clear waters of the South Fork Kings River, enjoy a picnic beside raucous Mist Falls, ramble on creekside trails through forests fragrant with cedar and pine, or regain your perspective from the park's highest points. Where the highway ends, the adventures begin…

Kings Canyon National Park: A Complete Hiker's Guide is the first comprehensive guide to the trails, campgrounds, outfitters, and facilities in the park and its environs. You'll find trips in neighboring Giant Sequoia National Monument, Sierra National Forest, and the Jennie Lakes and Monarch wilderness areas. Use this book to simplify your trip-planning--choose from 62 dayhikes, weekend overnights, or longer backpacks.

--Trail descriptions emphasize route difficulty, elevation gain and loss, good times to go, and unique features
--Routes match the needs of everyone, from strong hikers and adventurous backpackers to families on summer holiday, dayhikers and nature enthusiasts
--Topographic and overview maps help you anticipate the park's diverse geography, while numerous pictures let you sample the scenery
--Special sidebars inspire your curiosity about everything from beavers to woodpeckers and aspen to yarrow; learn about prehistoric Native sites and fire ecology; find out the difference between stalactites and stalagmites in nearby caves

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 6 reviews)

Similar to Sequoia NP book

I was well pleased with the trail and park information in both this and the King's Canyon Hikers Guides but I found a lot of duplication of information between the two. Disappointed that the author didn't just write a single tome.
May 19, 2008

Excellent

This is one of five books I have about hiking Sequoia-Kings Canyon. All are good; this is by far the best. Good narrative, fine maps and, very important to us early-season hikers, a month-by-month look at what trails will be snow-free and accessible to hikers. If author Mike White has other books available to parks I want to visit, I will definitely buy them.
April 14, 2008

Most Comprehensive Kings Canyon Hiking Guide

This book accompanies the author's "Sequoia National Park: A Complete Hiker's Guide". The two books are the most comprehensive guide to the trails in these two parks. Moreover, the book also has some excellent and useful tables in the appendix that detail the length of the trip, whether it is a loop vs. out and back, elevations... For those serious about this region, these are necessary. Two things could improve these books for future editions:

1) The maps are not very clearly printed. It is good that they are topographic USGS-style maps, however the contrast is poor and smudgy. Anyone doing these hikes ought to have a high quality fold-out map from Trails Illustrated or Tom Harrison anyway. Future editions should consider a higher-contrast less detailed map, or two-tone illustration as in the Lonely Planet guides.

2)Together, the two books are over 600 pages long. Clearly at this size they are less than suitable as backpack material anyway. The author may consider expanding them to include more cross-country routes for class I/II hikes, as the Roper/Secor/Arnot books have little competition on this angle.
January 15, 2006

Well organized guide

I really like the way this book is organized. Trails are grouped by trailhead, trailheads by general area. Each trail discussion has a quick summary of the basic information such as trail length, difficulty, whether it's a loop or linear trail. Handy also are the icons in the margin of the text that point you to specific features of the trail, such as vistas, campsites, and Sequoia groves. In the back of the book the many trails are listed in a chart that makes side-by-side comparisons easy. The only thing I wish this book had are elevation profiles for each trail. Then this would be a complete guide, indeed.
June 28, 2005

Offers tips on hiking trips of all lengths

Hikers and backpacks seeking to enjoy one of California's remoter and lesser-used parks will relish Mike White's Kings Canyon National Park: it offers tips on hiking trips of all lengths, from a quarter-mile stroll to a 42-mile trek, it surveys the best vista points and campsites within the park, and includes insider's tips on swimming holes and wildflowers. The inclusion of recommended side trips and trailhead descriptions along with topographical small maps makes Kings Canyon National Park a highly recommended choice.
July 09, 2004

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