Big Stump Basin, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park

Big Stump grove is a few miles outside of the Grant Grove Village on Hwy 180. Here you will find a fair sized carpark, picnic tables, bathrooms and two mile loop trail leading to the meadow where you will see quite a few giant sequoia stumps, the result of logging in the late 19th century. We walked the trail in April. Much of it was not yet cleared of fallen trees from the winter season and certain sections still under snow. We walked all the way to the Mark Twain tree, which is a giant stump with a staircase, allowing you to climb to the levelled trunk of the old tree to better experience its size. At this point, snowmelt had caused a stream to run through the meadow cutting us off from the rest of this loop trail. So we turned and went back to the carpark. In the end, sort of sad seeing so many massive tree stumps and reading the information panels describing logging in the area. What a shame to have lost the majority of the grove of sequoias here. We were happy to see a few survivors of the logging era amongst the forest during our hike here.

The trail head is at the picnic area. Nice short hike around a meadow that was the former Smith Comstock Mill. We scared some mule deer so if you are quieter than my kids you might get to see some wildlife there!