Grant Grove houses the General Grant Tree, which is the nation's Christmas tree and our only living national shrine, commemorating those Americans who lost their lives in war. This giant sequoia and its neighbors were initially protected in the four-square-mile General Grant National Park; General Grant and Yosemite were created by the same legislation on October 1, 1890, one week after Sequoia was established. In 1940, General Grant was absorbed into the newly designated Kings Canyon National Park. Big Stump Basin was added in 1958 and allows visitors in the Grant Grove area to compare the remnants of destroyed sequoias with nearby giants.

Other special features of the Grant Grove area include:

Big Stump Basin: Imagine yourself in a noisy, bustling logging camp as you ponder huge sequoia stumps and other remains of Smith Comstock's lumbering operation. As you walk this one-mile loop through regenerating sequoia forest, shrubland, and meadow, watch for birds and wildflowers. An alternate trail leads across the highway and past the Sawed Tree, a sequoia that survived being cut most of the way through over a century ago. Big Stump Basin is located two and a half miles southwest of the visitor center on Highway 180.

Panoramic Point: Treat yourself to a spectacular vista of the high Sierra. Identify peaks from Mount Goddard in northern Kings Canyon Park to Eagle Scout Peak in Sequoia Park. Mount Whitney cannot be viewed from the roads on the west side of the Sierras due to the height of the Great Western Divide. The 2.3-mile road to Panoramic Point is not recommended for trailers and RVs. The viewpoint is a quarter-mile walk from the parking lot. This road is closed to vehicle traffic in the winter, when it is used as a cross-country ski route.

Hume Lake: Hume Lake was built as a mill pond, and to supply water for a flume that floated rough-cut sequoia lumber from Converse Basin to the planing mill at Sanger, 54 miles away. The lake is in Sequoia National Forest. During the summer, it offers fishing, swimming, boat rental (available through Hume Lake Christian Camps), and a Forest Service campground, as well as gas, groceries, and a small laundry. Hume Lake is 12 miles north of Grant Grove.

Activities at Grant Grove Cross-Country Skiing Camping Hiking Trails North Grove Loop Sequoia Lake Overlook/Dead Giant Loop Buena Vista Peak Redwood Canyon Converse Basin

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