A lush meadow buffered by a forest of fir and giant sequoia trees, this was allegedly once described by John Muir as the ‘gem of the Sierra.’ High grass and summer wildflowers are good excuses for a leisurely loop hike, as is watching black bears snack on berries and rip apart logs to feast on insects.
The meadow environment is fragile, so always stay on established trails and don’t go tramping willy-nilly across it.
Several short hikes surround the meadow, including spur trails to Tharp’s Log , where the area’s first white settler, Hale Tharp, spent summers in a fallen sequoia, and, next to Huckleberry Meadow, the Squatters Cabin , an 1880s log cabin that’s a ghostly remnant of the failed utopian-socialist Kaweah Colony.
The meadow is almost 3 miles down Moro Rock–Crescent Meadow Rd, best accessed by the free seasonal shuttle bus. The road closes to all traffic after the first snowfall and doesn’t reopen until spring, but you can still snowshoe or cross-country ski along it.
