October is here, and California's Sequoia Country — home to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Sequoia National Forest, Giant Sequoia National Monument, and the welcoming communities of Tulare County — is trading summer heat for cool mornings, harvest season, and a calendar full of fall fun.

In this episode of Big Blend Radio's California Sequoia Country Show, airing every first Thursday, host Lisa D. Smith sat down with the Sequoia Tourism Council — Suzanne Bianco (Visit Visalia) and Holly Streit (Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks) — to celebrate a park anniversary, talk bear season and bear safety, and plan an October of scarecrows, arts festivals, ghost stories, and Halloween events.

Watch the Podcast Episode Below or Download/Listen to the audio version on Podbean.

Here are the top episode highlights, local recommendations, and practical travel tips from their conversation, organized by theme to help you plan your fall trip.

October 1st is an anniversary day for what we now know as Kings Canyon National Park. Holly explains that Sequoia became the country's second national park, and about a week later, on October 1st, 1890, General Grant National Park was established. It started out as just a four-acre park created to protect General Grant's Tree, the second largest tree in the world. It stayed that way for decades, until 1940, when Kings Canyon National Park was established and included both Kings Canyon and General Grant Grove. Today, it's all one Kings Canyon.

The General Grant area stays open through the fall and winter, but October is when the parks begin closing the areas that aren't maintained through the snow. Public access to Cedar Grove, the scenic byway drive down through Kings Canyon, usually closes in late October or early November, and the Mineral King area closes to the public in mid to late October. Holly says the park will announce the exact dates when they're available. Her message for those two areas: "we'll see you next year."

The General Grant Tree is special for more than its size. It's the only dedicated living shrine to the service members who gave their lives in service to our country, and it's also the nation's Christmas tree — not to be confused with the national Christmas tree outside the White House. Each December, the park holds a special ceremony at the tree, and a wreath handcrafted from cedar boughs clipped by park rangers is laid on the tree. It's something to look forward to as the holiday season approaches.

Fall is also bear season in the parks, and Holly says the bears are out gathering food to stay warm through the winter. Sequoia's bears don't fully hibernate, but they spend a lot of time bedding down under trees or in quiet areas, and as the weather cools they move lower into the foothills in search of more food. The park has been tagged in social media posts of bears climbing trees and pulling food out of the bark, and Lisa shares her own memory of hearing a mama bear and two cubs clawing a tree at Crescent Meadow.

That leads into a conversation about why dead trees matter. Fallen sequoias take so long to decompose that they act like a "little sequoia boardwalk" through a meadow while providing habitat and nutrients for the forest.

Holly's bear safety reminders:

Speaking of bears, as in teddy bears: Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, October 27th, is a fee-free day, a good excuse to visit the parks. Note that the National Park Service's 2026 fee-free days apply to U.S. residents.

When the weather cools, Suzanne says, Tulare County takes advantage with a packed calendar of festivals and events. She starts at the beginning of the month with the Tulare crush party, a big wine-tasting event on October 9th with food, drink, and plenty of conversation. For details, visit the Tulare Chamber events page.

The next day, October 10th, head to Exeter, a charming little town known for its beautiful murals, for its fall festival. It leads into the town's Scarecrow Festival, where downtown merchants decorate scarecrows for display and a judging contest. Lisa notes the scarecrows are up from October 1st through the 31st, and it's a fun way to explore the murals. Like all of the communities in Tulare County, Exeter is very pedestrian friendly, so it's easy to spend a relaxed Saturday walking around.

The weekend of October 17th brings even more to the Visalia area:

October is also Pizza Month, and Suzanne's pick in Visalia is Planing Mill, a fun spot in a historic building with games out front for families, a diverse beer list, and unique pies like a Thai pizza.

Visalia's historic downtown also comes with a few ghost stories. Suzanne points to the Palace Hotel, which dates to 1876 and has a link to the national parks: Stephen Mather and a group of influential men stayed there before a trek through the national parks that ultimately helped create the National Park Service. A woman who worked in a business below the hotel told Suzanne that the spirits who lived upstairs visited her often, and one day told her they were leaving because it had gotten too noisy.

This is also a good time of year to visit a cemetery, Suzanne suggests, since the headstones tell the history of the people who settled a community. A couple of cemetery events are happening this year, including the kind where people dress up and tell the stories as if they were there.

The Sequoia Symphony's new season at the Fox Theater includes a performance of the score from Pirates of the Caribbean while the movie plays behind the orchestra, a fun way to introduce younger audiences to a symphony. Lisa adds that the Fox Theater is an experience on its own.

For something creepy, the parks recently wrapped their Dark Sky Festival, and in Visalia the planetarium hosts Cosmic Creeps on October 23rd, an inexpensive night of fun and educational programming. Suzanne also shares that the city is collecting nominations for the scariest and best decorated Halloween homes. The city council votes on winners in several categories, and the city creates an interactive map so you can drive by and see them all ahead of Halloween night.

And Suzanne says you can't have fall in Visalia without the Vintage Press restaurant's mini roasted pumpkins, filled with smoked chicken and Gruyère cheese. They are back on the menu, and people look forward to them every year.

October is also Global Diversity Month, and Lisa points out how many people from around the world have come to Tulare County to work in the parks and in the agricultural scene. Suzanne recommends the Tulare County Museum on the grounds of Mooney Grove Park, where a cultural museum has revolving exhibits on the different communities that settled here, from Southeast Asians to Italians to the Dutch. One highlight was a covered wagon, loaned by a local family, that their ancestors used to travel from Texas to California in the 1800s.

Fall is a great time for museums, and Holly adds that the visitor centers and the Giant Forest Museum in the parks have thoughtfully curated displays on the cultural history of the people who helped establish the parks. With Porterville, Springville, and other communities around the parks all hosting their own festivals, there's plenty to explore.