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Top Attractions in Kings Canyon National Park

General Grant Grove

General Grant Grove, a section of the greater Kings Canyon National Park, was established by the US Congress in 1890 and is located in Fresno County, California. The primary attraction of General Grant Grove is the giant sequoia trees that populate the Grove. General Grant Grove's most well-known tree is the General Grant Tree, which is 267 feet tall and the third largest tree in the world. The General Grant Tree is over 3,000 years old and is known as the United States's national Christmas Tree. General Grant Grove consists of 154 acres and is geographically isolated from the rest of Kings Canyon National Park. The original inhabitants of what is today General Grant Grove and Kings Canyon National Park were natives of the Shoshonean language group. The Monache, Tübatulabal, and Yokuts were the primary native groups of the region. In 1846, Hale Tharp, a disenchanted miner who hoped to establish a cattle ranch in the region, became the first white settler to enter the Giant Forest that would later constitute Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Tharp carved a shelter out of a fallen sequoia tree and began to raise cattle. Initially, Native Americans of the region welcomed Tharp, as he helped them hunt and coexisted peacefully among them. Tharp's settlement in the Giant Forest, however, spurred further human interest in the region, and the native population began to contract contagious diseases from incoming white settlers. Tharp claimed that the natives pleaded with him to help them prevent white settlers from entering the valley. When Tharp told them this was impossible, the natives elected to leave the valley. By 1865, within twenty years of Tharp's arrival in the Giant Forest, the natives of the region had moved elsewhere and the Giant Forest was open to timber companies and cattle ranchers. With the growing presence of timber and cattle interests, conservationists began to advocate for the preservation of the region. In 1873, John Muir, a renowned naturalist, hiked from Yosemite to the Giant Forest. After the hike, Muir began advocating for federal protection of the canyon. Because of the sequoia's size and durability, the Giant Forest was a region of particular value to loggers.The Kaweah Colony, a socialist colony which lived in the forest until 1892, hoped to profit from lumber production and constructed the first road in the park. Lumber interests did not have a stranglehold on the region, however. The federal government ensured protection of the General Grant Tree in 1880, when it withdrew from sale four acres of land surrounding the tree. Advocacy for protection of the forest gained traction in the 1870s when agricultural interests in the Central Valley sought to end the harmful practices of sheep herders and lumber companies. Local farmers objected to the economic exploitation of the Canyon on two levels. First, grazing and lumbering resulted in runoff which impacted farming in nearby towns. Second, locals feared that habitat loss would detract from their scenic and recreational enjoyment of the wilderness. On October 1, 1890, in response to pressure from agricultural interests from citizens in towns such as Visalia and conservationists such as John Muir, who wrote a number of articles in journals describing the lands' beauty, Congress passed a bill that established Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant national parks. Tourism in General Grant National Park was limited in its early years. Utilizing the road built by the Kaweah Colony, early tourists camped in the park using tents and temporary shelters. In subsequent years, accommodations and lodgings were constructed to attract visitors. Initially, General Grant National Park was under the supervision of the State of California and protection of the U.S. Army. State officials oversaw tourist issues, while the Army was responsible for park protection. Despite only receiving $8,000 to protect all three California National Parks, the Army protected the parks effectively in its early years. In 1906, the State of California ceded control of the park to the federal government and in 1916, the establishment of the National Park Service permanently placed management of the park with the newly created National Park Service. Even after the establishment of General Grant National Park, private interests sought to profit from the resources within the park. Officials from Los Angeles County hoped to use the Park's major rivers, the Kings, Kern, and Kaweah, to harness hydroelectric power for the city, but locals remained wary of the environmental impact of damming. The Mt. Whitney Power Company began development of power stations along the rivers in 1898, and hoped to eventually dam the three rivers to provide power. The 1920 Federal Power Act allowed the federal government to license private corporations to develop water and power projects on public lands. Following the Federal Power Act, the City of Los Angeles filed to build dams on the rivers both within Park boundaries and outside the Park. The City of Los Angeles' plan was met with extensive resistance from locals, however. Residents of the San Joaquin Valley spearheaded the resistance to the proposed dam. After three years, the City of Los Angeles' petition to dam the Park's rivers was rejected. However, the fight to prevent the damming of the rivers continued through 1965, when all of Kings Canyon was protected from hydroelectric development.

South Fork Kings River

The South Fork Kings River is an important tributary of the Kings River in the U.S. state of California. It joins the Middle Fork Kings River to form the main stem of the Kings. It is famous for flowing through Kings Canyon, a 10,000-foot deep glacial canyon in the heart of Kings Canyon National Park, and Cedar Grove, a valley said by some to resemble world-famous Yosemite Valley farther north in Yosemite National Park. The river is 45 miles long and flows south for the first part of its course, then west for the remainder. It drains an area of some 460 square miles . Important tributaries include Woods and Bubbs Creeks, and the Roaring River. Settlements on the river include Kanawyers and Cedar Grove. State Route 180 follows about 25 miles of the lower river. There are plenty of records of Chinook Salmon presence 10-12 miles above Pine Flat before the 1940s and even some after that in Mill Creek in the 1970s. Woodhull and Dill noted that salmon ascend about 10 to 12 mi beyond the present upper extent of the reservoir and salmon migration in the Kings River probably ascended no farther than the confluence of the North Fork. Yoshiyama and Moyle also noted that there is an undocumented note of “a few salmon” having occurred much farther upstream at Cedar Grove in the past. As of 2012 the California Department of Fish and Game fish data base from their surveys indicate that only rainbow trout, brown trout and Sacramento sucker are found in the South Fork Kings River. However, "it will be necessary to thoroughly evaluate the genetics of all suspected non-hybridized stocks of California golden trout and conduct a thorough search of the upper Kern River, South Fork Kings River and other basins to find all available genetically uncontaminated populations, in order to assure a non-hybridized, yet appropriately broad California golden trout gene pool within the new habitats." This is because "... many of the waters in the headwaters of the South Fork Kings River and several tributary streams and lakes were also planted with California golden trout from GTC between 1909 and 1914. Sam Ellis, one of the CDFG employees responsible for many trout transplants from GTC, kept a map of 1870 to 1915 trout transplants from GTC to waters elsewhere in the southern Sierra Nevada. Information on the map shows locations, dates and species of trout planted in the southern Sierra Nevada. Based on this map, information from other sources (Ellis 1915; Ellis and Bryant 1920)..."

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