5 Days in Yosemite

Tunnel View opened in 1933 together with the Wawona Tunnel, and for many people arriving from the south it is the first view. You come out of the tunnel into the whole Valley: El Capitan on the left, Bridalveil Fall on the right, and Half Dome standing at the far end. It is the most photographed view in the park, and it deserves it.

Don't expect a quiet spot. The car park is a stage with a crowd, so take your photos and move on. The view changes completely with weather: after a storm, with cloud sitting in the Valley or fresh snow on the cliffs, it is far better than on a clear blue day.

Bridalveil Fall drops about 620 feet and flows all year, which makes it the safest bet for a waterfall on any date. The paved trail from the parking area is half a mile round trip with about 80 feet of climb, and takes 20 minutes. In spring you will get wet; the spray can be strong enough to make the end of the trail hard to reach. In late summer and fall it thins to a light, swaying veil, which is where the name comes from.

The car park is small and often jammed in summer. If it's full, drive a few hundred yards further east on Southside Drive, park along the road and walk the slightly longer path across Bridalveil Creek.

El Capitan is a single block of granite about 3,000 feet from base to summit, and it is the world's best-known big-wall climb. From the meadow at its foot you can lie in the grass, look up and find climbers: small colored dots on the cliff that hardly seem to move. Bring binoculars. The routes are long and hard, so on a clear day in season there is often someone up there.

Stay on the paths; meadows in the park are fragile. Parking is in the pull-outs along Northside Drive.

Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in the park, a drop of 2,425 feet in three parts, and the lower fall is the final 320 feet. The paved loop is one mile with about 50 feet of climb, and it takes 30 minutes. Walk it clockwise for the best views of the whole fall.

The trap is timing. In May and June the water is deafening and you get soaked on the bridge. By late July or August it is often dry, and from August to October it can be a bare black stain on the cliff, which is exactly what you see on a fall trip. Look at the Yosemite Falls webcam on the conditions page before you decide how long to stay. If you want the top, the Yosemite Falls Trail climbs 2,700 feet in 7.2 miles round trip and takes 6 to 8 hours, a different day's work; Columbia Rock, 2 miles round trip, is the short version.

Cook's Meadow is the Valley's front lawn: a flat, one-mile loop on a boardwalk across open grass, with Yosemite Falls behind you and Half Dome ahead. It takes about 30 minutes, it's open all year and good in any season, so it's the thing to do when you only have an hour.

Finish at Sentinel Bridge for the classic view of Half Dome reflected in the Merced River. The river is low in autumn and the reflection thinner, but the light on the dome at sunset is the same. Stay until the granite turns pink, then walk back to the car or the shuttle stop.

The Mountain Room is in the Yosemite Valley Lodge and serves dinner only, with Yosemite Falls in view. The park concessioner lists it as upscale casual: it's the one place that feels like a real restaurant without the formality of the Ahwahnee, and nobody will mind clean hiking clothes.

The lodge also has a food court-style eatery, the Base Camp Eatery, if you'd rather eat fast and sleep early after the drive.

The trail starts at Happy Isles, shuttle stop 16, where you can fill up with drinking water. The first mile is paved and gently uphill, and it's the busiest part of the whole hike. The footbridge at 0.8 miles has the first full view of Vernal Fall, a 317-foot sheet of water. Round trip to the footbridge is 1.6 miles with about 400 feet of climb, and the park rates it moderate.

If you only have an hour or two, stop here. In spring you can also catch a glimpse of Illilouette Fall from the lower section. Beyond the bridge is where the hike gets serious.

Past the bridge the trail splits, and the Mist Trail goes straight up a granite stairway of more than 600 steps next to the falls. The distance from the junction to the top is only 0.3 miles, but it feels longer: the steps are wet, the spray is strong, and in spring and early summer you will be soaked within minutes and may see a rainbow. The round trip to the top of Vernal Fall is 2.4 miles with about 1,000 feet of climb. The park rates it strenuous.

At the top, the water goes through Emerald Pool and Silver Apron. It looks inviting, but swimming or wading here is illegal and dangerous because of the current. A safer way down is the John Muir Trail via Clark Point, which avoids the wet steps.

From the top of Vernal Fall, another 1.5 miles of steep, rocky switchbacks lead to Nevada Fall, which crashes down 594 feet and is fullest in spring and early summer. The round trip from Happy Isles to the top is 5.4 miles with about 2,000 feet of climb, and the park estimates 5 to 6 hours. At the top, cross the footbridge for a close look, then decide which way to go down.

The Mist Trail back down is shorter, about 2.5 miles. The John Muir Trail is longer, roughly 4 miles, but it has different scenery, views of Liberty Cap and fewer people. Pick it if your knees or the spray are a concern.

Half Dome rises nearly 5,000 feet above the Valley, to 8,800 feet above sea level, and from Nevada Fall you are looking at it from the side. The hike to the top is 14 to 16 miles round trip with 4,800 feet of climb, 10 to 12 hours for most people, and the last 400 feet go up two steel cables. A permit is required seven days a week when the cables are up, normally from the Friday before Memorial Day to the day after the second Monday in October.

Be honest about the odds: only about 225 day-hiker permits a day, plus 75 for backpackers, and demand is much higher. Day-hike permits go by lottery on recreation.gov, one preseason lottery in March (results in mid-April) and daily lotteries two days before the hike, with applications until 4pm Pacific. Most readers won't get one. You haven't missed the point of Yosemite: the Mist Trail, Glacier Point and Olmsted Point all give you better views of the dome than most of the hike does.

The Ahwahnee opened in 1927 and is a National Historic Landmark since 1987, a stone, steel and timber hotel built to look like part of the cliff behind it. The interior inspired the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. For three years, 2016 to 2019, it was called the Majestic Yosemite Hotel because of a trademark dispute with a former concessioner; the name was restored after the settlement.

Walk in and see the public rooms. The bar serves lunch and dinner casually, with no dress code. The dining room is different: dinner there is a fixed five- or seven-course menu with a request for proper attire (no shorts or hiking clothes). Dinner reservations are recommended.

After a hiking day, the thing to do is eat pizza. The Pizza Deck in Curry Village is a fast-casual spot under the cliffs, listed for lunch and dinner and open January through November and on holidays, so check it in December. It isn't New York pizza, and it doesn't pretend to be; the point is a big, hot slice and a cold drink within a ten-minute walk of the shuttle.

Curry Village is seasonal in places, and some of its other eateries close for winter, so check what's open.

Degnan's Kitchen in Yosemite Village serves breakfast and lunch and has free Wi-Fi. Pick up sandwiches and snacks here before you drive, because there's little food on Glacier Point Road and water is only available at Glacier Point itself from late spring to early fall.

Buy more water than you plan to drink. Service on the road is very limited, there's no regular shuttle back to the Valley, and your day is longer than it looks on the map.

Taft Point is reached from the Sentinel Dome and Taft Point trailhead. The walk is 2.2 miles round trip with about 200 feet of climb on the way back, through forest and meadow to the rim. The prize is the fissures, giant cracks in the granite that drop directly toward the Valley floor, with El Capitan and Yosemite Falls beyond. It is named for President William Howard Taft, who visited with John Muir in 1909.

There's a long drop on all sides and not every edge has a barrier. Keep children close, don't step back for a photo, and stay away from the edges if it's windy.

From the same trailhead, Sentinel Dome is a 2-mile round trip with 400 feet of climb, and it ends with a scramble up the side of a granite dome. At the top you get a 360-degree view: Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and much of the high country. It's also one of the best sunset and stargazing spots in the park.

Stay off the dome during a thunderstorm; there's nothing to shelter under. If you're short of time or energy, choose Sentinel Dome over Taft Point for the wider view, and Taft Point if you'd rather see the Valley wall from above.

A short drive before the end of the road, Washburn Point is named for the Washburn brothers, who ran hotels and stage lines in early Yosemite and paid for the first Glacier Point road in 1882. It's a roadside overlook with a side-on view of the Valley.

The Vernal and Nevada falls you may have climbed on day two form a great staircase when seen from Glacier Point, and Washburn Point is an easy stop that many people drive past. The free shuttle from Badger Pass stops here too.

Glacier Point sits at 7,214 feet, about 3,200 feet above Curry Village, and a short paved path of about 300 yards leads from the parking area to the rail. Below you is the whole Valley, with Half Dome right across and Yosemite Falls, Vernal Fall, Nevada Fall and the high country spread out. Honest verdict: it is the most dramatic viewpoint in the park, and worth the drive.

From 1872 to 1968 the hotel here pushed burning embers off the cliff each night as a Firefall. It ended in 1968 because the crowds were trampling the meadows. Stay for sunset, then drive back with a headlamp; the road is an hour of dark curves. Water is available here from late spring to early fall.

The Mariposa Grove is the largest grove of giant sequoias in the park, with several hundred mature trees, and the place where the national park idea began: it was protected by the Yosemite Grant of 1864. It closed in 2015 for a 40 million USD restoration and reopened in June 2018. Cars no longer enter; parking moved two miles away to the Welcome Plaza, and a free shuttle brings you to the arrival area.

Start with the Big Trees Loop, a 0.3-mile flat walk with the Fallen Monarch, then take the Grizzly Giant loop. The trees are huge in a way photos don't show: the bark is red and deeply grooved, the trunks flare at the base, and the first branch is far overhead. Drinking water is at the parking area all year and at the trailhead in summer only.

The Grizzly Giant is the grove's best-known tree, famous since the first tourists. Modern dating puts it at about 3,000 years old, give or take a few centuries, and nineteenth-century photographs of it helped convince a doubting public that trees like this existed. The loop is 2 miles round trip with about 300 feet of climb, and takes 1.5 to 2 hours; on the way you pass the Bachelor and Three Graces and the California Tunnel Tree.

The trail is the busiest around the Grizzly Giant, and nearly empty beyond it. If you have the time, the Guardians Loop and the upper grove (6.5 miles, 4-6 hours) are quiet.

In Wawona, a collection of historic buildings stands across a covered bridge from the hotel, gathered here from around the park. You can walk among them all year; the interiors open only on a limited basis in summer, when there are also special programs and carriage rides. It is a simple stop that gives the area some human story after the sequoias, and a good place to stretch your legs.

The famous Wawona Hotel has been closed since 2 December 2024 for a condition assessment by the National Park Service, with no reopening date announced, so you can't stay or eat there. The grounds are still worth a look from outside.

A short 0.6-mile round trip from the end of Forest Drive leads to a suspended footbridge over the South Fork of the Merced River and a popular swimming hole. On a hot day in summer it is the best place in the park to get into water, and the shallow, slow stretches are good for a picnic.

Be careful with river water. In spring and early summer it is cold and fast, and the park warns against wading near moving water.

Oakhurst, about 14 miles south of the South Entrance, is the first real town on the way out, and Smokehouse 41 is a barbecue restaurant that smokes its meats for hours and says it sells out most days. After a day of walking, a plate of brisket or ribs and a cold beer is a fair reward.

If you're staying in the Valley instead of Oakhurst, the drive back is about an hour and a half, so eat here only if you have a base on this side; otherwise the Valley Lodge's Base Camp Eatery is an easy alternative.

Olmsted Point is at about 8,400 feet, and it shows Yosemite Valley from the east, which is a very different angle. Half Dome looks like a different mountain from here, because you see its north side, with Clouds Rest and Tenaya Canyon beyond. Granite boulders left behind by glaciers, called erratics, are scattered across the slabs.

There's a roadside parking area and a short, hilly 0.25-mile walk each way out onto the point. It is named for the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and his son. The park says it's also an excellent place to watch the sunset.

Tenaya Lake lies at 8,150 feet, the largest lake in the park's frontcountry, ringed by pale granite domes. It's a popular place for picnics, swimming and kayaking in summer, with several parking areas along the shore for beach access and picnic tables.

Park at one of the pull-outs and walk the shoreline. The color of the water changes with the clouds, and the granite behind it is the real point.

Tuolumne Meadows is one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada, at about 8,600 feet, with the Tuolumne River winding through and granite domes on every side. It is the high-country half of Yosemite, and a very different place from the Valley: wide, quiet, and in July full of wildflowers.

Walk toward Soda Springs, where carbonated water bubbles from the ground in a log enclosure, and Parsons Memorial Lodge, open from late June to early September, where John Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson planned the national park. It's an easy walk of about a mile from the visitor center. There is no gas in Tuolumne Meadows and no cell service.

Lembert Dome stands just north of the Tioga Road. The park describes the trail as short but steep, and it leads to the top of the dome, with a view of the meadow and the surrounding peaks. You are starting at 8,600 feet, so you will feel the climb even if it is not far.

Walk it in the morning or late afternoon, and don't be on the granite in a storm. Take water and a layer, because it is much colder up here than in the Valley.

The Grill is a fast-casual stand serving breakfast, lunch and dinner to hikers, and it is the only food for miles. It is summer only, roughly mid-June to mid-September (2026: 13 June to 14 September), so outside high summer you should bring your own lunch.

The Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, a set of tent cabins, has a dining room listed for the same dates.