Yosemite means "killer" in the Indigenous Miwok language, and in today's parlance it's indeed an impressive, awesome site. Everywhere you look in Yosemite…
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Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada
With fierce granite mountains standing watch over high-altitude lakes, the Sierra Nevada is a formidable but exquisite topographic barrier enclosing magnificent natural landscapes and an adventurer’s wonderland.
Backcountry Bonanza
Spanning 400 miles across central California, the Sierra Nevada encompasses dazzling mountain canyons and some of the highest peaks in the country. Trails lure visitors to verdant valleys of wildflowers and desolate, lightning-prone pinnacles. Bears tear open logs, marmots whistle in warning, and crickets and frogs harmonize to a nightly fever pitch. Spending time in the wilderness resets your brain. You step back, assess the situation with fresh eyes and put things into perspective. Maybe it has something to do with the timelessness of the landscape – the ancient glaciers or the glow of the lakes at dusk and dawn.
Time Warps
This region has a past both wide and deep. Glaciers, though receding, gnaw at granite shoulders as they have for millennia. Prehistoric forests loom within the parks and at inhospitable heights beyond them. The volcanic forces that moved these mountains to life still rumble underfoot and in simmering hot springs. Humans have left their mark as well. Trails show the routes taken by indigenous Californians – the Sierra Miwok, the Paiute and the Shoshone – who traded between the western foothills and the Eastern Sierra; grinding stones and ancient petroglyphs have endured. Pioneers abandoned mining camps to the elements, creating desolate ghost towns and the remains of forgotten railway lines.
Winter Wonderland
For solitude and serenity, winter rules. Summer may be high season, but after you've seen snow in the Sierra, you might well question why. The peaks are some of the highest in the US, regularly rising above 11,000ft, occasionally bursting to 14,000ft, and are blanketed by snow for much of the year. Snow paints the trees and splatters the mountains, and your breath turns into moist, puffy clouds. There are full-moon snowshoeing and cross-country adventures, plus the chance to camp under giant sequoias. Go swooshing across the hushed backcountry, barrel down some powdery slopes, or just stay inside and warm your toes by a roaring wood fire.
High Peaks
Punctuated with fairy-tale spires, knobby domes and talus-encrusted mountaintops, the scenery in the national parks of Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon might just put a crick in your neck as you gaze at it all. A jaunt through Yosemite Valley is a ticker-tape parade of granite skyscrapers, with Half Dome taking a deep bow. Tempestuous Mt Whitney lords over the far-eastern reaches of Sequoia National Park. With wild rock formations, groves of the planet's largest trees, astonishing waterfalls, deep canyons, unimaginably vast swaths of granite, humbling peaks and a four-season dance card, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon are no less than perfect.
Explore Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada
- Yosemite National Park
Yosemite means "killer" in the Indigenous Miwok language, and in today's parlance it's indeed an impressive, awesome site. Everywhere you look in Yosemite…
- Mono Lake
North America’s second-oldest lake is 70 sq miles, and a quiet and mysterious expanse of deep blue water. The glassy surface reflects jagged Sierra peaks,…
- Alabama Hills
The setting for countless ride-‘em-out movies, the popular Lone Ranger TV series and, more recently, parts of Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008) and Quentin…
- Earthquake Fault
Mammoth Mountain is the product of millions of years of volcanic activity, so it should be no surprise that the region surrounding it is full of…
- Mariposa Grove
With their massive stature and multi-millennium maturity, the chunky high-rise sequoias of Mariposa Grove will make you feel rather insignificant. The…
- Glacier Point
If you drove, the views from 7214ft Glacier Point might make you feel like you cheated – superstar sights present themselves without your having made…
- SSequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Joined by a high-altitude roadway bisecting a national forest and contiguous with a number of wilderness areas, these two parks combined offer vast…
- Bodie State Historic Park
At Bodie State Historic Park, a gold-rush ghost town is preserved in a state of 'arrested decay.' Weathered buildings sit frozen in time on a dusty,…
- Manzanar National Historic Site
A stark wooden guard tower alerts drivers to one of US history's darkest chapters, which unfolded on a barren, windy sweep of land some 5 miles south of…
Latest Stories from Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada
Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada.
See
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite means "killer" in the Indigenous Miwok language, and in today's parlance it's indeed an impressive, awesome site. Everywhere you look in Yosemite…
See
Mono Lake
North America’s second-oldest lake is 70 sq miles, and a quiet and mysterious expanse of deep blue water. The glassy surface reflects jagged Sierra peaks,…
See
Alabama Hills
The setting for countless ride-‘em-out movies, the popular Lone Ranger TV series and, more recently, parts of Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008) and Quentin…
See
Earthquake Fault
Mammoth Mountain is the product of millions of years of volcanic activity, so it should be no surprise that the region surrounding it is full of…
See
Mariposa Grove
With their massive stature and multi-millennium maturity, the chunky high-rise sequoias of Mariposa Grove will make you feel rather insignificant. The…
See
Glacier Point
If you drove, the views from 7214ft Glacier Point might make you feel like you cheated – superstar sights present themselves without your having made…
See
Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Joined by a high-altitude roadway bisecting a national forest and contiguous with a number of wilderness areas, these two parks combined offer vast…
See
Bodie State Historic Park
At Bodie State Historic Park, a gold-rush ghost town is preserved in a state of 'arrested decay.' Weathered buildings sit frozen in time on a dusty,…
See
Manzanar National Historic Site
A stark wooden guard tower alerts drivers to one of US history's darkest chapters, which unfolded on a barren, windy sweep of land some 5 miles south of…
Guidebooks
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