Sequoia NP
near Three Rivers CA

Potwisha Campground & Potwisha Indians

California National Parks:

Sequoia & Kings Canyon
In the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare and Fresno counties, CA, where nature's size, beauty, and diversity are seen in huge mountains, rugged foothills, deep canyons, vast caverns, and the world's largest trees, two parks lie side by side in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of the San Joaquin Valley. Elevations range from 1,300' to 14,494'.

Potwisha campground is located 4 miles from the Sequoia Park entrance. Situated on the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River under an open stand of oaks, the campground is hot in the summer and snow free in the winter. Its elevation is approx. 2,100 ft. Open all year with camping on a first come, first serve basis, there are approx. 40 campsites.

Potwisha campground is named after Native Americans who were hunters and gatherers with well-established permanent villages below the 5,000 foot level but generally above the foothill and valley Yokut sites. It was the Potwisha Band of the Monache who frequented the area of Sequoia National Park near Camp Wolverton. It is believed that the Potwisha Tribe of Indians left the park area around 1865.

Potwisha appears in an historical reference which lists Judge Fry in early 1920s news accounts numbering the Potwisha tribe over 2,000 as far back as 1856 with the main rancheria at Hospital Rock on north bank of Middle Fork Kahweah River. The dividing line between this tribe and the valley Indians of the Watchumna tribe was at Lime Kiln Hill, Lemon Cove.

Hospital Rock on the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River was once home to nearly 500 Native American Potwisha sub-group of the Monache, or Western Mono, Indians. Archeological evidence indicates that Indians settled in this area as early as 1350. Today, visitors to Hospital Rock can still view ancient rock paintings, or pictographs, and bedrock mortars used to grind acorns. The area got its present name in 1873, when James Everton stayed here to recover from a gunshot wound he had received while stumbling into a shotgun snare set to trap bear.

The area which now comprises Sequoia National Park was first home to these Monachee (or Western Mono) Native Americans, who resided mainly in the Kaweah River Foothills region of the park, though evidence of seasonal habitation exists even as high as the Giant Forest. In the summertime, Native Americans would travel over the high mountain passes to trade with tribes to the East. To this day, pictographs can be found at several sites within the park, notably at Hospital Rock and Potwisha, as well as bedrock mortars used to process acorns, a staple food for the Monachee people.

You are required to store food properly in order to protect bears. Learn more about bears and food storage in the parks.

Getting there: Highway 180 enters Kings Canyon National Park from the northwest via Fresno and provides access to the farthest eastern vehicle-accessible point near Cedar Grove. Highway 198 enters Sequoia National Park from the southwest via Three Rivers.



Sequoia National Park is the second-oldest national park in the United States. It was created by Congress on September 25, 1890. General Grant National Park (the area now called Grant Grove), was designated soon after. Only Yellowstone National Park is older, created in 1872.

HOSPITAL ROCK [Tehipite]
A huge boulder, sixty feet long and twenty feet thick, overhanging in such a way as to form a spacious room; used by the Potwisha Indians for gatherings, ceremonials, and for shelter for the sick and for new-born babies.

In 1860, Hale D. Tharp and John Swanson stayed here for three days while the Indians healed Swanson's injured leg. In 1873 Alfred Everton was accidentally shot in a bear-trap that he had himself set. George Cahoon carried Everton to the rock, where he left him while he went for assistance. From this incident Hale Tharp gave it the name Hospital Rock. In 1893 James Wolverton lay here during his last illness.