Sequoia & Kings Canyon
Southern Sierra Nevada · near Three Rivers / Grant Grove · Sierra Nevada / Yosemite
Stargazing
At a glance
- Best season
- Summer–fall (high country snowy in winter); check festival dates
What is here
- Highlights
- milky-way · programs · astrophoto
- Landscape
- forest
- Amenities
- Giant sequoia foregrounds · Annual Dark Sky Festival · Meadow & overlook viewing sites · Abundant park campgrounds
- Best for
- Stargazing among the world's largest trees
- Features
- Milky Way over giant sequoias · Annual Dark Sky Festival · Dark high-Sierra skies · Meadow & overlook viewpoints
Worth knowing
- Hazards
- High country snowy in winter — summer–fall for full access · High altitude — cold nights, thin air · Tall trees limit sky views in dense groves — find meadows/overlooks · Bears — store food properly
- Beginner friendly
- Yes
Stargazing detail
- Designation
- informal
- Reach
- easy
- Darkness
- 4
- Sky notes
- The largest trees on earth beneath a dark Sierra sky — the giant sequoias of the southern Sierra make a foreground like nowhere else, and the parks host an annual Dark Sky Festival under skies around Bortle 2–3
- Stats note
- ~Bortle 2–3; giant sequoia foregrounds; annual Dark Sky Festival
- Campground
- Yes
- Intl tip
- The largest trees on earth beneath a dark Sierra sky (~Bortle 2–3) — the giant sequoias of the southern Sierra make a foreground like nowhere else, and the parks host an annual Dark Sky Festival with talks and telescope viewing. Best summer–fall (high country snowy in winter); cold nights at altitude; dense groves limit sky views, so find meadows or overlooks; bear country (store food). Standing beneath a 2,000-year-old sequoia with the Milky Way overhead is awe-inspiring.
The guide
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, protecting a magnificent stretch of the southern Sierra Nevada, offer a stargazing for…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Sequoia & Kings Canyon — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 36.56, -118.77