(Continued from previous page.)
Photos taken November 2008 unless noted.
Miscellaneous photos of the Grant Grove Village area.
Me (blue coat on right), Julie, my son, DIL, and grandkids at the Gamlin Cabin March 2009.
Cabin 9, the "honeymoon cabin." Built in 1910 at Hume Lake several miles away, moved to this location sometime before 1930.
Honeymoon Cabin in the snow. March 2009.
Redwood Duplex Cabin/Cottage. Build 1927. More details on this building are in the virtual tour.
Porch area of a Rustic Cabin at Meadow Camp area. More details on this building are in the virtual tour.
Porch on the John Muir Lodge. This is the first floor porch on the end of the building.
Porch on the John Muir Lodge. The 2nd floor porch, directly above the last photo.
Painting of John Muir in the lobby of John Muir Lodge.
Lobby of John Muir Lodge.
Lobby of the John Muir Lodge
John Muir Lodge Lobby, Christmas 2007
View from room window at John Muir Lodge. Taken March 2013.
Upgraded and remodeled John Muir Lodge Guest Room, taken in 2015. Notice there is now a flat screen tv. You can't see it but the walls are now insulated and have double drywall to make them more sound resistant.
This is the Plaza Area of Grant Grove Village. From left to right; restroom building (built 1940), market and post office (flag pole in front of post office, built 1994), gift shop and old coffee shop (building angled to right with shed roof porch. Built 1933 & 1962.) The large building in the background on right is the Grant Grove Visitor Center (built 1965). The gas station (built 1936) is out of the photo to the left, I took the photo standing in front of the gas station.
Gift Shop with Old Restaurant Behind it.
Gift Shop in 2017, restored to more or less it's original floorplan.
Gift Shop in 2017, the bay window is a 1960's modification. The original windows for the building were multi-pane.
Modern rustic east side of the Gift Shop with new patio. 2017
Grant Grove Village Gift Shop. The gift shop building was built in 1933 and completely remodeled in 2017. The old coffee shop building was
added to it in 1962 and demolished in 2016. When the coffee shop addition
was installed in 1962 the gift shop was extensively modernized to make
it match the new coffee shop. A new roof was added on the coffee shop side of the gift shop to match the appearance of the roof on
the coffee shop. New siding and modern
glass windows replaced the old siding and windows on the older gift shop
building. The goal of the "Mission
66" plan being implemented at that time in the National Parks was to
upgrade and modernize the parks, to build new buildings in the parks
that looked fresh and modern, and to eliminate the older rustic style
buildings where feasible. Simpler exteriors with low, gently sloped
roofs were the new preferred style. The Visitor Center across the
parking lot from the gift shop dates from the same period in the 1960's
and has the same architectural style as the old 60's era coffee shop. The west side of the gift shop still maintains most of the historic 1933 appearance (except for modern windows and doors), while the other sides are a "modern rustic style" of architecture that matches the new restaurant built adjacent to it in 2017.
The old 60's Coffee Shop. The coffee shop was the building on the right with the lovely air conditioning units on the roof. Notice that even the 60's era "modern" building had bracketed outlookers on it! A nod to the historic architectural signature of the Village. The Gift Shop is the building on the left. March 2009. The coffee shop in this photo was demolished in 2016.
This is a more recent photo of inside the old 60's era Grant Grove Village Coffee Shop, probably around 2010. Originally the interior layout of the coffee shop was '60s "coffee shop" style. If you look at the ceiling you can see the lowered ceiling area that extended out to where the counter seating was. The counter had the typical swivel type floor-mounted stools. I believe there were also booths around the perimeter of the room at one time, if my memory serves me. A service area was behind the counter where the servers prepared salads and drinks. Behind that the kitchen had a order window and one of those revolving ticket holders for the meal tickets, like a classic 1960's era coffee shop. If you've ever been in an old Denny's Coffee Shop, that is pretty much how this one looked. The counter was removed a few years ago and the wall with the darker teal accent at the top wall was added to separate the food prep area from the dining area. Now this building is demolished, it's all gone!
Another
view of the interior of the former Grant Grove Village Coffee Shop. At
one time my wife and I ate here often enough that the servers (they were
still called waitresses back then) all knew us by name. We lived in Fresno,
about a 1 hour drive away, and would often come up for lunch and a short
hike in the woods.
The
former Grant Grove Village Coffee Shop's side room. At one time this was
the location of the only public TV in the Village (the John Muir Lodge
now has tv's in the rooms.) Originally this room was the
Sequoia Room Bar
back in the days when all the National Parks with food service also had
bars. The actual wood bar counter was on the left side of the room in
this photo. The old Sequoia Room was a bit notorious back in the 60's
and 70's during the "back to nature" and "free love" movements. Young
people in the park to hike and explore would meet up in the bar at the
end of the day. Some of the male employees were somewhat infamous for
their pick-up skills.
Grant Grove Market and Post Office. Built in 1994. The color, roof line, and siding on this building matches the more modern look of the adjacent Gift Shop & Coffee Shop building with a lower slope on the roof. In a nod to the rustic style, this building uses gables with large exposed timbers, and bracketed outlookers supporting the gable, as appears on all of the pre-1960 buildings. The windows are also multi-pane to match the style of the older buildings.
Grant Grove Village Gift shop. This is the modernized interior of the historic gift shop. This building served as the coffee shop prior to the mid-1960's. The 1960's era coffee shop that was adjoining it has been demolished and the Gift Shop building has been returned to it's original size and partially restored.
Construction of the new Grant Grove Restaurant in Spring 2017. The new restaurant is now open. I'll add photos as soon as I get up there to take them, I'm planning a visit in late October, 2017.
Panoramic Point. The narrow, winding, Panoramic Point Road leads 2.3 miles from Grant Grove Village to a parking lot just below the park ridge. There is a pit toilet and picnic tables at the Panoramic Point parking lot. From the parking lot a short trail leads about one block up to Panoramic Point. At the Point you will find this fantastic view of King's Canyon and the snow capped mountains beyond it. The lake you can see just left and below the photo center is Hume Lake, a former logging lake where there are campgrounds, private cabins, and a huge Christian conference center. In this photo the middle fork of the King's River extends toward the snow capped mountains in the distance, directly behind Hume Lake. The south fork of the King's River extends up the canyon to the right of the photo, behind the tree covered mountain.
This photo was taken in the late fall, when the park and forest service conduct controlled burns. Controlled burns are small fires intended to mimic the forest fires common to this area, and burn away accumulated debris on the forest floor- without endangering lives, property, or historic cabins! If you look carefully you can see the smoke from a burn in this photo.
Large glacial boulders dot the park ridge above Grant Grove Village. Several trails lead from the Village up to the ridge, or for an easier hike take the road to Panoramic Point where there is a parking lot just below the ridge. There is a pit toilet and picnic tables at the Panoramic Point parking lot. If you hike 2.5 miles along the Park Ridge Trail which follows the ridge there are great views and at the end there is a steel frame (active) fire lookout tower you can climb. In this classic "tourist photo" Julie saves the Grant Grove Village below from sure destruction by pushing a wayward boulder away from the edge of the ridge.
This is the Buck Rock Lookout. It is NOT the fire lookout on the park ridge. It is located outside the National Park in Sequoia National Monument and a high clearance vehicle is suggested (or long hike) to reach it. (I have seen ordinary passenger vehicles make it to Buck Rock, but I wouldn't want to risk busting an axle or loosing a muffler on a rock myself.) Ask how to get there at the Grant Grove Visitor Center. It takes about 1 to 1.5 hours to reach Buck Rock from Grant Grove by vehicle, depending on how fast you are willing to bump over the very rough one-lane dirt road that takes you the last few miles up to it. Once at Buck Rock you can climb up to the fire tower and say hello to the fire lookout on duty. The view is incredible but sadly I don't have a photo to show you.
Winter is a great time to visit. You can rent X-country skis or snowshoes at the Grant Village Store.
The General Grant Tree at Grant Grove. Giant Sequoia.
Some park animals...
A Ground Squirrel
A Western Gray Squirrel
Deer across Panoramic Point Road from the John Muir Lodge. They can be seen here most evenings browsing for food in the creek bed. Low light and a slight shake of the telephoto lens make for the blurry photo. The deer in the Village area tend to be a bit more cautious than most of the park deer and are hard to get close to.
Little Black Bear, no sign of mom, so he may have been just weaned off onto his own. This one I spotted at Lodgepole in Sequoia National Park but they do show up at Grant Grove Village at times. Wouldn't you just like to hug him? Maybe you would you like to be mauled too? I'm not as close as it looks, I used a telephoto lens to take this photo.
Bobcat are found in the Park, but sightings are unusual in the Grant Grove area, so we considered seeing this one a fortunate event.
OK, sorry, my jokes are getting worse with each new photo.. I'll quit now.
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