Yosemite (Yosemite Valley)

Top things to do in Yosemite (Yosemite Valley)

1. 01

   Tunnel View and Valley View - the two classic stops on the valley road

   scenic 👍 Popular

   Tunnel View sits at the eastern mouth of the Wawona Tunnel on Highway 41 and delivers the whole valley in one frame: the great wall on the left, a fall dropping off the right-hand cliff, and the domed summit closing the far end. It is the composition Ansel Adams worked over for decades and it is at its best in the half hour after a storm breaks up. Valley View, further down at the western end, does the same thing from river level with the Merced running through the foreground.

2. 02

   Mist Trail - Vernal and Nevada Falls

   hiking adventure ⭐ Highly recommended

   The valley's signature walk climbs from Happy Isles to a footbridge, then up a staircase of about six hundred granite steps cut beside Vernal Fall, which in May throws enough spray across the trail to drench you and hang a rainbow over the steps. Above it the trail keeps going to the top of Nevada Fall, and most people come back down the gentler John Muir Trail to make a loop with a long view back at both falls and the dome above them. The steps run wet and slick, so this is a boots-and-a-rain-shell walk, not a sandals one.

3. 03

   Yosemite Falls - the base walk and the climb to the top

   hiking scenic 👍 Popular

   At 739 m over three drops it is the tallest waterfall in North America, and a flat paved path from the shuttle stop takes anyone to the churning base of the lower fall in a few minutes. The serious version switchbacks up the cliff beside it, reaching Columbia Rock and its valley view after about a kilometre and a half and the brink of the upper fall after a climb of some 800 m. Timing matters more here than anywhere: it peaks with the snowmelt and often runs dry by late summer.

4. 04

   Glacier Point - the valley from the rim above it

   scenic nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommended

   A railed terrace almost a kilometre directly above the valley floor, looking straight across at the domed summit and down onto the two falls of the Mist Trail, with the high peaks stacked up behind. The road in is long but easy and the terrace is a few steps from the car park, which makes it the best return on effort in the park, especially at sunset. The road is closed by snow through winter and into spring; when it is open you can also walk down to the valley on the Four Mile or Panorama trails and ride a bus back up.

5. 05

   Mariposa Grove - the giant sequoias at the south end

   nature wildlife scenic 👍 Popular

   Around five hundred mature giant sequoias in a grove near the South Entrance, reached by a shuttle from a welcome plaza rather than by driving in. The short Big Trees Loop is boardwalk and level, and a longer walk uphill reaches the Grizzly Giant, a leaning veteran with a single lower limb thicker than most whole trees, and the California Tunnel Tree that was cut through for stagecoaches. Trees this size do not photograph, which is the point of standing under one.

6. 06

   El Capitan - the wall, and watching the climbers on it

   climbing adventure

   Around 900 m of unbroken granite rising off the valley floor, the most famous piece of rock in climbing. From El Capitan Meadow you can lie on your back with binoculars and pick out parties strung up The Nose, first climbed over 47 days in 1958, and after dark the portaledge headlamps hang on the face like static stars. The Dawn Wall on the right-hand side was freed in 2015 over nineteen days, and in 2017 the whole cliff was climbed without a rope by way of Freerider.

7. 07

   Half Dome - the cable route to the summit

   hiking adventure

   The sheared dome at the head of the valley stands about 1,460 m above the floor, and the last stretch to the top runs up bare granite between two steel cables strung on posts. It is roughly 26 km round trip from the valley with around 1,500 m of climbing, a full pre-dawn-to-dusk day, and it needs a permit issued by lottery. The cables go up in late spring and come down in the middle of autumn; outside that window the route is not a hiking proposition at all.

8. 08

   Tioga Road and Tuolumne Meadows - the high country most visitors miss

   hiking scenic

   The road east over Tioga Pass tops out at 3,031 m, the highest highway pass in California, and it climbs out of the forest into a different park: Olmsted Point staring at the back of Half Dome, the pale beaches of Tenaya Lake, and a broad subalpine meadow at about 2,600 m ringed by domes and spires. From there short walks run up Lembert Dome or Pothole Dome and a longer one climbs to the Cathedral Lakes under the peak the same name. Snow keeps the road shut into late spring or early summer and closes it again in autumn, so it is a seasonal park within the park.

9. 09

   Taft Point and Sentinel Dome - the two short walks off Glacier Point Road

   hiking scenic

   Two easy walks from one car park that together beat almost anything of their length in the park. Taft Point ends at a set of deep fissures split straight through the cliff edge with a single low railing and a view across at the big wall opposite. Sentinel Dome is a bald granite hump you can walk up in trainers for a full circle of the Sierra crest, the valley and the high country in one turn.

10. 10

    Bridalveil Fall - the first fall you meet in the valley

    scenic nature wildlife

    A 189 m ribbon dropping off a hanging valley right where the road comes in, close enough to the car park that a short paved walk gets you into the mist at the base. In a strong wind the whole fall lifts sideways and never reaches the ground, which is where the name comes from. Unlike most of the valley's falls it holds at least a trickle through the dry months.

11. 11

    Hetch Hetchy - the drowned twin valley

    hiking off beaten path history

    A separate entrance in the park's northwest corner leads to a reservoir behind O'Shaughnessy Dam, filling a granite valley that John Muir argued was the equal of Yosemite itself and lost. The walk across the dam and along the north shore to the foot of Wapama Falls is low enough to be good in early spring when everything higher is under snow, and it is one of the few corners of the park where you can be alone in April. The gate opens and closes with daylight hours.

12. 12

    The Ahwahnee - the 1927 hotel under the Royal Arches

    history culture arts

    A deliberate piece of grand park architecture in granite and concrete stained to look like timber, built to convince wealthy visitors that a national park was worth funding. Anyone can walk into the Great Lounge with its stone hearths and stained glass, or the beamed dining room, without staying the night. It is the clearest illustration in the valley of what park tourism was designed to be a century ago.

13. 13

    Camp 4 - the campground that produced modern climbing

    climbing history

    A walk-in campground of dusty sites and boulders behind the valley lodge, where the climbers who worked out how to spend days on a big wall camped between attempts through the 1950s and 60s. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for exactly that reason, which is a strange honour for a patch of pines. The boulder problems around the sites are still worked over every evening in the cool months, and it is the place to eavesdrop on what is going on up on the walls.

14. 14

    Mirror Lake, the valley bike paths and the river beaches

    nature wildlife scenic

    The easy half of the valley: about 19 km of flat paved bike path linking the villages, campgrounds and trailheads, a level walk out to a shallow pool that reflects the dome above it in spring and dries to a meadow by late summer, and sandy bends of the Merced where people swim and float on hot afternoons. This is what makes the valley work for families and for anyone who wants a day off between the big climbs.

15. 15

    Horsetail Fall - the February light on El Capitan

    scenic nature wildlife

    For a couple of weeks in the middle of February the setting sun lines up with a thin seasonal fall on the east face of the big wall and lights the water orange, so it reads as lava pouring off the cliff. It needs a wet winter to be running at all and a clear western horizon at the right moment, so it fails as often as it works, and the viewing areas get managed hard because of the numbers it draws. Worth knowing about rather than worth building a trip around, especially given what the weather is doing that month.

16. 16

    Badger Pass - the small ski hill on Glacier Point Road

    adventure nature wildlife

    California's oldest downhill ski area, opened in 1935, a handful of gentle lifts in the trees that exists to teach children rather than to challenge anyone. What it really buys you is winter access to the high country: the road past it becomes a groomed track for cross-country skis and snowshoes running all the way out to the rim viewpoint. It is the honest answer to what there is to do here in the months everything else is shut.

17. 17

    Yosemite Museum and the reconstructed Ahwahnechee village

    culture arts history

    A small museum in the main village with Miwok and Paiute basketry, and behind it a rebuilt village of bark houses, an acorn granary and a roundhouse still used for ceremony. It is the one place in the valley that treats the eight thousand years before 1851 as the main story rather than a preface, and it takes half an hour. The photography gallery next door has been in the same family since the 1900s.

Getting to & around Yosemite (Yosemite Valley)

Know before you go