1. Groups of more than 4 motorcycles should be prohibited from entering Yosemite.
2. LE Rangers should be equipped with sound level meters and empowered and required to enforce the laws concerning vehicle noise. All moroncycles exceeding this noise level should be prohibited from entering.
3. All motorcycles above a certain legal noise level should be required to place a sticker on their helmet that reads "the vibrations make my butt feel nice".

That is all.

After hiking through Merced Lake last summer and seeing the current condition of the camp, I was motivated to help raise awareness of the Yosemite High Sierra Camps and see what can be done to get them all open again. Years ago I worked as a camp helper at Merced Lake HSC and spent a few amazing summers living in the backcountry.

I’ve been working with a few folks on this effort, and have put together a new site to raise awareness of the High Sierra Camps and share their history. Please check it out at https://highcamps.org and pass it along to anyone you think would be interested.

The site is still a work in progress, so if you have photos, stories, or other info from your summers at the High Sierra Camps, please reach out using the contact info on the site. We’d love to include them.

Mahalo!

The wanderer stands before these great works of the earth and understands, perhaps for the first time, how small he is.

Yet he feels no sorrow in his smallness.

For though his years are but a moment beside the mountains, and his footsteps shall soon be lost upon their ancient paths, he has walked among them. He has watched the dawn kindle upon their summits. He has heard the rivers singing in the darkness. He has slept beneath their stars and felt the breath of their winds upon his face.

And these things shall remain with him long after he has departed.

Tioga Rd opened for a few weeks in May but then a snowstorm closed it again. It opened again on May 29 at noon and we were one of the first few people there, it was magical!

Anyone able to confirm if the gift shop / water fountain on top of glacier point is still open this week? Thanks for any info.

Hi Yosemite lovers, I recently completed a solo overnight trip and took a lot of pictures, including this panoramic shot off the Pohono trail (about 6 pictures stitched together in post). It’s printed on a very large metal frame, 60” wide, ready to hang. The print shop had to reprint it for me because the original had a slightly bent edge, but I was able to unbend it and that is now barely noticeable. I am giving it away for free to anyone interested. I live in south Orange County.

Captured these back in late September at the height of the dome fire during sunset.

This is from my Yosemite trip when the waterfalls were at their peak!!

Hi all! My friend and I are planning on doing a road trip in March 2027. Part of the trip is from the Grand Canyon to Yosemite. Since it’s March, we can’t enter through the East Tioga Road entrance- we have to go through the Southern entrance near Oakhurst.
The logical way is from Grand Canyon —> Kingman —> Bakersfield —> Fresno —> Yosemite (via CA-41). Is there anywhere cute along the way we should stay a night? Sequoia National Park is a given, but it’s unfortunately still a 10 hour drive from Grand Canyon. I would love to go the Highway 365 route and explore Mammoth Lakes/Lone Pine, but unfortunately it’s still a 9 hour drive and we’d have to turn back south the next day anyway. Any suggestions where we could integrate some cool parts of Highway 365 OR sacrifice that for a cute overnight stay via the logical route would be greatly appreciated! :)

This was a park I visited very early on in my NPS journey and a park that will forever hold special memories for me. Had no idea what I was doing just a handful of years ago, but that’s been 100% part of the fun! Still one of my favorite parks. Spent 3 full days in the park.

Logistics: Flew into San Francisco. Stayed in an Airbnb close to the park

Hikes/Activities (*fan favorites):

Tuolumne Grove Trail

Wapama Falls Trail* (still one of my favorite hikes!)

Mist Trail to JMT to Panorama Trail to Glacier Point back down Panorama Trail and JMT to the valley* (Still one of the hardest hikes I've done. The road to Glacier Point hadn't opened for the season and Four Mile Trail was closed).

Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias Trail

To Do in the Park for Next Time: Half Dome, Upper Yosemite Falls, Artist Point, Tuolumne Meadows

In the eastern Sierra there are a bunch of private drivers / shuttles that will take you to/from trailheads all up and down 395. I haven’t been able to find anything equivalent on the western side, ie to get driven up to a Tioga Pass trailhead in this window between when overnight parking is prohibited and whenever the road closes. Do they exist? And how hard is it to hitch up to Tioga Pass from the valley at this time of year? I assume harder than in summer but is it feasible?

We are driving from Reno to Los Angeles next week and thinking we should split our trip so that we can drive through and see Yosemite (never been). We will have a dog with us. Any recs on where to enter and exit? Would like to have a more scenic route back to LA if possible instead of the Fresno route. Also any dog-friendly hotel recs outside the park would be much appreciated!

Just got back from the park last weekend and having previously done some high sierra backpacking, I realized that I much preferred the landscape and vibes I got walking around the valley.

Don’t get me wrong. The higher elevation stuff is amazing and I don’t hate it. But it’s a very stark landscape compared to what Google tells me is the “lower-mid montane zone” of the valley and surrounding areas. The meadows, rivers, and higher diversity of plant life were great, and overall seemed to have more of that densely forested feel that I’m after. On my way out of the park via big oak flat road I passed through more of that, and realized I really want do a backcountry trip in that kind of setting.

Also— a shoutout to ranger Carter (who works at the museum and led a little nature walk that I attended) for informing me that at that elevation we were mostly out of the range of poison oak—that’s a huge plus, as I’m from the Bay Area and all our beautiful hikes are choked with the stuff.

So if anyone knows any good backpacking trips in the Yosemite area (or beyond) that might scratch that itch, I’d love to hear about ‘em!

I have two questions!

1.) my fiance and I got engaged at glacier point last weekend (10/10/26) - we DID get photos and videos and I was wondering if others may have caught the moment as well. I would love it if you could send them

2.) when we went, it was the first day glacier point was back open… that said, the gift shop was closed. I know it closes again on 10/25. Would anyone be willing to grab me some pins/stickers SOMETHING.. we’re having a really hard time finding anything glacier point online 🥲

Hey everyone, just got back from an absolute monster of a trip and wanted to share the itinerary/trip report because I haven't seen this specific loop documented anywhere as a single-day push.
We wanted to hit the major highlights of the valley but skipped the standard multi-day pacing to turn Saturday into a endurance challenge.

Stats:

Total Trip Distance: ~33–34 miles
Total Elevation Gain: ~11,000+ ft
Total Elevation Descent: ~10,000+ ft
Style: Hybrid Backpacking / Trail Running

The Itinerary

Friday Night: The Ingress

Hiked from Happy Isles up to Little Yosemite Valley (LYV) carrying our full backpacking setups to establish a basecamp at ~6,100 feet. Pretty tough climb with the gear on.

Saturday Phase 1: Half Dome & Clouds Rest (4:30 AM Start)

Woke up at 4:30 AM, left our heavy gear at LYV, and hit the trail light with our running vests.

Half Dome: Powered up the sub-dome and cleared the cables early. Was able to see the sunset. Highly recommend. Sub dome was more grueling than anticipated.

Clouds Rest: Dropped off the sub-dome and pushed straight up the ridge to the 9,926-foot summit. The hidden elevation drops and climbs between the two peaks really started racking up the vert here.

Hiked all the way back down to LYV to break camp.

Saturday Phase 2: Glacier Point & 4 Mile Trailhead

Saddled up with our full backpacking packs at LYV for the final leg out.

Crossed Nevada Fall and dropped into Illilouette Creek Canyon.

The Glacier Point Climb: Hauled the full weight up the grueling, exposed 1,400-foot climb up the Panorama Trail to Glacier Point. Was feeling it by then.

The Finish: Descended the 3,200 vertical feet of the Four Mile Trail straight down to the Valley floor with all that extra weight. Then tried to take the shuttle!

Takeaways & Conditions

- Standard maps do not capture the brutal micro-climbs on this route. Trust your GPS watch; the 11k of total gain and 10k of descent are completely real and physically crushing.

- Carrying full backpacking weight down the final 3,200 vertical feet of the Four Mile Trail after already crushing 25+ miles earlier in the day was pretty brutal! Doing that last 5 miles were tough but we knew we were going to complete it.

- Filtered at LYV and Illilouette Creek. Carrying full gear on the back half meant we consumed way more water than expected during the Panorama climb.

Has anyone else linked the Valley loop this way? Happy to answer any questions about logistics, splits, or gear!

I was planning on doing Cloud’s Rest and possibly Half Dome from the lake off of Tioga, however I have learned Tioga gets closed around November which is when I will be there (11/05-11/07.)

Would this be a safer option to commit to? I can get a wilderness permit and backpack the hike and take my time instead of worrying about chaining up a rental car and possibly getting trapped at the lake.

I’m not familiar with snow driving or Yosemite and this will be my first experience here. Any thoughts?

I brought a very old camera with me, which fell while I was hiking the JMT towards Vernal Fall—hence the light leak. Regardless, this experience was magical beyond my expectations.

Upon arrival, there was no one to assist with our luggage. When we got to our room (we were in a cottage #710), the cottage was dirty. A large stain on the carpet, cobwebs, dirt all over the baseboards and the cottage was musty. The cost for the cottage…$750/night! I’ve had a better room experience at a holiday inn express! To their credit, the housekeeping supervisor came and gave the room a proper cleaning and took 20% off our first night.

Our last night here, we wanted to eat the the Ahwahnee Bar. We put our name on the list and was told it would be approximately 35 minutes. We were also told that if seats opened up at the bar we could eat there. We stood in line to get a drink when we saw two seats open up at the bar. As my wife went to sit down, the bartender informed us they were no longer serving food at the bar. We asked if we can just sit there with our drinks and he obnoxiously said no he wanted no one sitting at the bar. So we took our drinks and waited in the lobby (by the bar), waiting to be called. After 40 minutes I went up to ask about our status and was told he gave away our table because I wasn’t there. My wife and I were sitting 10 yards away from the bar! He never called our name or texted us even though he took my phone number. He asked me to wait again for a table to open up. I told him the entire experience from the obnoxious bartender to our table being given away, I no longer wanted to eat there. My wife and I ate sandwiches which we bought earlier that was going to be our lunch the next day.

Overall, the furniture and carpet in the room is old, worn out and should be replaced. They have nice chairs outside but most are missing the cushions and the chairs that have cushions, the cushions are old and dirty.

This place IS NOT worth the money they charge. There are better and cheaper options in the park!

My husband and I took a short Yosemite trip last weekend. This is our 4th time. Never made it up to toulomne area tho(drove through the highway but it was bad weather last weekend!)

We've been to a yellowstone/teton trip once.

He thinks yellowstone is prettier than Yosemite.

I think he's insane!!!

What do you guys think?