Kings Canyon and Sequoia NP

Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park are basically one park.  While they are separate parks by name they geographically connect.  There was no where available in the parks for the RV so we parked it at an Elks lodge in Fresno.  Yes I am an Elk.  We got a hotel at the south end of Sequoia NP and planned to use it as a base.
Day 1 we saw and hiked Kings Canyon.  It was our first viewing of sequoia trees.

Day 2 we spent time  Sequoia NP and did more hiking and saw more trees.

This is a seed cone from the Giant Sequoia

This is the GPS in map view of the road we drove each day in and out of the parks.

Bears

We went into Southern California from Arizona in April of 2014.  Mostly we followed the coast north with a few excursions inland.  As we got away from the cities we began seeing signs about bears.  "Speed Kills Bears", "Don't Feed the Bears".  We even saw cute road signs depicting a mama bear and 2 cubs with the phrase "Bear Crossing".  It made sense that there would be lots of bears as California is the Bear Republic.  These signs continued all thru Oregon and Washington.  (by the way, they don't call it Washington state out here,  they just call it Washington and refer to Washington D.C. as "the other Washington".)  As we turned south from Washington to head back toward AZ we were more inland and stayed in or visited several National Parks.  Bear warnings were everywhere.

While in the National Parks there were multiple warnings about bears.  The National Parks even provide food containers (Bear Boxes) that you are supposed to put all food in before you go on a hike.  If you are tent camping even your tooth brush and tooth paste are to be stored.  Anything with an odor is to go in the Bear Box.  They tell you they are not responsible for any damage to your car if you leave food in it and a bear damages the car trying to get to the food.

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So we were warned and taking all the proper precautions.  We figured we'd see lots of bears.  We spent April thru mid-November in the 3 states.  In that time we saw 1 bear!

Yup!  That is it.  What a thrill to see a bear so far away you can't even get a good picture!

I think the bear warnings and bear boxes are simply a marketing tool used by each state to try to increase tourism.  Much like Northern Minnesota and Canada do with moose signage!