The old Giant Forest Village was a cluster of 300 aging buildings that included cabins, shops and a lodge. Wuksachi Lodge was built on a less densely forested site, and the final part of the old village was torn down last November. The lodge is composed of three buildings with guest rooms and a fourth structure housing the huge dining room, a gift shop and a communal area where you can sit by a roaring fire. Accented with cedar and stone, the lobby extends a warm welcome. The lodge's exterior is plain.
Guest rooms are comfortable but bland, with many overlooking parking lots.
The dining room's menu was simple, but it had all the staples of high-end park dining, with an assortment of steak, fish, chicken and game for dinner. Our favorites included a pan-fried trout with pistachio sauce and roasted chicken with rosemary and shallots. Despite the smaller off-season crowd, we often faced a traffic jam at the dining room, where the wait for dinner was 90 minutes. Our only other options were to make the 20-minute drive to Grant Grove Village in neighboring Kings Canyon National Park, where we had a hearty dinner one night, or to stop at Lodgepole Campground a few minutes away. It has a ranger station, a snack bar serving breakfast and lunch, and a store with fixings for sandwiches.