50 Best Short Hikes: Yosemite National Park and Vicinity. Elizabeth Wenk

      Giant sequoia in the Merced Grove

      INTRODUCTION

      Yosemite National Park is one of the country’s best-known and most-visited national parks, with approximately 4 million visitors annually. Yosemite Valley is its most famous feature, with eight waterfalls, the sheer faces of Half Dome and El Capitan, and a grand collection of pinnacles, towers, and cliffs. However, Yosemite Valley occupies just a fraction of the national park, and Yosemite’s treasures are much more diverse. A visitor is greeted by bubbling alpine creeks, smooth glaciated slabs, giant sequoias, deep dark-blue lakes, rock as far as the eye can see, meadows thick with a rainbow of flowers, alpine vistas, extensive conifer forests, shallow alpine tarns, domes, rivers, mining relics, cascades, pinnacled summits, and more.

      This collection of attractions does not all exist in one location. The park covers nearly 1,200 square miles and ranges in altitude from below 3,000 feet along the Tuolumne and Merced River valleys to summits that top 13,000 feet. More than 800 miles of trail cut through the landscape, making a great number of hikes and diversity of landscapes accessible to anyone who wishes to park the car and explore the wilderness. Approximately a quarter of these trails are within 4 miles of a road, stretches that can be covered on a short day hike as defined in this book. This book includes 50 of my favorite excursions in and around Yosemite, chosen to introduce you to all of Yosemite’s wonders. Although all are less than 8 miles round-trip, they range considerably in difficulty, length, and environment. I hope there are many that you find inviting.

      ACCESSING YOSEMITE

      Just 214 miles of roads cut lines across Yosemite’s vast wilderness landscape. Five roads enter the park from the west: CA 140, CA 120, Evergreen Road, Cherry Lake Road, and CA 41, with only CA 120 extending across to the east end of Yosemite National Park. CA 140 follows the Merced River Canyon east from the town of Merced, past Mariposa and El Portal, and into Yosemite Valley. CA 120 climbs steeply out of the San Joaquin Valley, passing Groveland and approximately straddling the Tuolumne River–Merced River drainage divide as it enters Yosemite at Big Oak Flat and climbs to Crane Flat. At Crane Flat, the right-hand fork, Big Oak Flat Road, descends into Yosemite Valley, while CA 120, or Tioga Road, continues east to Tuolumne Meadows, Tioga Pass, and eventually Mono Lake. Evergreen Road is a spur off CA 120 that descends to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir just before the Big Oak Flat entrance station along CA 120. Cherry Lake Road is a second spur off CA 120; no walks from this destination are covered in this book, as the windy drive to Cherry Lake and nearby Lake Eleanor is lengthy. Similar scenery may be found at more easily accessible locations. And finally, CA 41 approaches Yosemite from the southeast, passing through Oakhurst and entering the park adjacent to Mariposa Grove and Wawona. It continues north, descending into the western end of Yosemite Valley. The only other spur of consequence is Glacier Point Road, forking from CA 41 at Chinquapin and traveling east to Glacier Point, always just a few miles from Yosemite Valley’s southern rim. US 395 lies east of the park and connects to CA 120 in Lee Vining, 12 miles east of the Yosemite boundary at Tioga Pass.

      Trailheads are of course confined to these roads, and the roads hence delineate the seven hiking regions covered in this guide: Hetch Hetchy Reservoir (accessed by Evergreen Road), Yosemite Valley (accessed by CA 140, CA 120, and CA 41), Glacier Point and Wawona (accessed by CA 41 and Glacier Point Road), Tioga Road and Tenaya Lake (along CA 120), Tuolumne Meadows (farther east along CA 120), Tioga Pass (the park’s eastern boundary, accessed by CA 120), and Mono Lake and vicinity (east of Yosemite, accessed by CA 120 or US 395). Note that CA 120 east of Crane Flat and Glacier Point Road are closed November–May or beyond.

      YOSEMITE’S SEASONS

      Most people visit Yosemite in spring to see Yosemite Valley’s raging waterfalls, or in summer, when school vacation permits a trip and temperatures are warmest. However, the lowest sections of the park, including Yosemite Valley, the Hetch Hetchy area, and Wawona, are accessible year-round and are snow-free during all but the coldest winter spells. Climbing just a few thousand feet brings you into the snowbelt, the mixed conifer zone, with snow cover generally from mid-November through March or April. Continued ascent into the montane, subalpine, and alpine reaches of the park, including passage along Tioga Road (CA 120) to Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass, carries you to areas that are inaccessible for 7 months—from the first major snowfall in October or November until at least late May. Spring reaches the low elevations in April and the alpine in June. A warm, mostly dry summer follows. June–August is hot in Yosemite Valley, Wawona, and Hetch Hetchy and pleasant in Tuolumne Meadows and at Tioga Pass. By September, fall, with freezing nights, has arrived at the upper elevations, and within a month the yellow grass and coloring leaves have spread to Yosemite Valley. October brings the first snowfalls at the upper elevations, with snow already sticking in shadowed areas on the higher summits. Soon winter, with snow or persistent rain, has enveloped all of Yosemite. The plants, animals, and most visitors are again waiting for spring.

      APPRECIATING THE PARK’S RICH NATURAL HISTORY

      Every visitor to Yosemite will absorb some of the park’s wonderful natural history—the granite walls and summits, as well as the multitude of plants and animals, that are experienced every time one steps out of the car and looks around. As you walk, take the time to look around you.

      More than 400 species of mammals, birds, and reptiles call Yosemite home. Some of the species are seen by many park visitors: the ubiquitous California ground squirrels around Yosemite Valley and Glacier Point, inevitably begging for food; mule deer, frequently seen grazing in Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows; blue-and-black Steller’s jays squawking as they fly from tree to tree; chipmunks and golden-mantled ground squirrels scurrying through the upper elevation forests; American black bears trotting confidently through the campgrounds at dusk, waiting for a camper to leave food unattended; marmots sunning themselves on high-elevation boulders; and many more.

      Persistent searching—and a dose of luck—might lead to some treats: a weasel peering over a rock, a pika chirping from the middle of a high-elevation talus pile (or at Olmsted Point), a glimpse of a mountain lion in Yosemite Valley, or even a herd of Sierra bighorn sheep near Mono Pass. Other mammal species are so rare that they will likely go undetected during a lifetime of exploring the park. The Sierra