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Yosemite National Park

Chickaree squirrels, the spirit of the puffing wind and giant sequoias.
By Viju James

The Yosemite National Park, located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, covers an area about twice the size of Zanzibar. This World Heritage Site has a footfall of over 3.5mn visitors a year from all over the globe. The majority of these visitors are happy to remain on the Yosemite valley floor – an area of just 18 square kilometres crammed with almost every spectacle that nature has to offer. The aficionados go further in search of the total park experience – perhaps choosing a trek from 1,300km of hiking trails, paddling across 2,600km of streams, cycling over 560km of roads, or attempting to climb one or other of the granite monoliths in the park.

A good way to jump-start a visit to the national park is to spend a few minutes watching the Spirit of Yosemite. This curtain-raiser is an award-winning documentary streamed free of charge at the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center Theatre. The film gives visitors the wide angle and explains many things that may be overlooked in the course of rushing from one waterfall to another. It also explains the geological antecedents of the park and introduces pioneers like John Muir, a Scotsman who studied the Yosemite and its glacial origins and who later lobbied for the preservation of the region.

Yosemite was originally the home of the Native American Pai-Ute and the Miwok people who lived in the area before the California Gold Rush. Chief Tenaya, the founder of the Ahwahneechee colony of the Pai-Ute, and his people fought the first settlers but were captured and moved to a reservation near Fresno. All that remains of the Ahwahnee today is a hotel property of the same name and a reconstructed village in the Yosemite Museum.

The park’s information and services tabloid, Where to Go and What to Do in Yosemite National Park, is compulsory reading for anyone who wants to make the most of their time. Most visitors ask the rangers on duty to mark the sights they should see and the order in which they should be seen. The rangers’ selections are sure to include Half Dome, Nevada and Vernal Falls, Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Falls, El Capitan, Happy Isles and Sentinel Beach. With a take-it-or-leave-it shrug the ranger might also add that the rest of the sights, namely Glacier Point, the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass, are miles away. These attractions are also at higher elevations varying between 600 and 4,000m above the valley floor. What you might see on the day of your visit often depends on the time of the year and the weather. The road to places like the Tuolumne Meadows and the Tioga passes over the Sierra, and therefore closes after the first snowfall and only reopens when the snows have melted.

The Yosemite Valley Shuttle Services run throughout the day and cover all of the sights on the valley floor. Visitors can jump on and off the shuttle and then walk up to the sights that they wish to explore – granite monoliths, waterfalls, lakes, meadows or a trail that leads away from popular photo-opportunity locations.

Nobody can miss El Capitan (popularly called El Cap) and the Half Dome, the huge granite cliffs that rise from the valley floor. The 1,000m-high El Cap is a popular year-round climbing destination with several routes to the top. Fifty years ago, the first attempt on The Nose (El Cap’s most popular route) took over a month and a half to complete; in 1975, three climbers accomplished the same climb in a single day. El Cap’s Nose continues to challenge both male and female climbers. The mountain has a good publicist and is a celebrity of sorts. In the Star Trek V series, the Final Frontier opens with Captain Kirk scaling the mountain; the PS 2 video games Gran Turismo and Tourist Trophy feature a fictional track set at the base of El Cap.

With a height of 1,440m, Half Dome wins hands down as the most prominent monolith in the national park. Until 1870 it was considered absolutely inaccessible, but George Anderson crushed that notion when he made the first ascent five years’ later. Today, thousands of climbers scramble to the top following the trails from the valley floor. At any time of day, one can see hundreds of visitors gazing skywards at either El Cap or Half Dome, all straining to get a glimpse of climbers as they move up from one perch to the next.

Water is everywhere in Yosemite. Without exaggeration there are over 3,000 lakes (each larger than 100 square metres), two reservoirs and 2,600km of streams. Credit for this goes to the Tuolumne and the Merced rivers, both of which originate in the Sierra Nevada. The two rivers have shaped Yosemite over millions of years, and are responsible for creating the present physical geography of the park. Yosemite has 17 waterfalls and some of them are, to borrow an American word, awesome. The Yosemite Falls are the highest in North America and consist of three sections: the Upper Falls, the Cascades and the Lower Falls. Trails go up to both the Cascades and the Upper Falls but it’s the viewing galleries of the Lower Falls that draw visitors to its pool. Rainbows are at a discount – hardly anyone returns without seeing one over the falls.

There are nearly 30 Bridal Veil Falls all over the world but the one at Yosemite is different because of its American syntax (Bridalveil Falls). Native Americans, who never worried about the other falls of the world, called it Pohono, the Spirit of the Puffing Wind, which describes it perfectly. The flow of water in all the falls swells in the springtime and reduces considerably by the end of summer. In winter, parts of the waterfalls freeze and thereby change the entire topography of the area.

There are several choices when you are looking for a brief retreat to either open the sandwiches or take a midday break. Two that come to mind are the Sentinel Beach and the Happy Isles, which offer more than just fallen tree trunks and park benches. At the Sentinel, you can watch a dipper feast on dragonflies; at Happy Isles, you can quietly experience life on the banks of the River of Mercy, the Merced, as it roars down.
After taking your money’s worth of free rides on the shuttle bus – perhaps not all of it on the same day – it’s time to find some of the other attractions away from the valley. The climb to Glacier Point or to the Tuolumne Meadows and the Tioga Pass reveals a shift from one botanical life zone to another. The vegetation changes: the junipers give way to ponderosa pines, then the aspen and Douglas firs, followed by spruces and, at the highest level, grass and lichen. The scent of pine resins wafts in the air for miles, and the sight of the tremulous leaves of the aspen is a reminder of the facts of vulnerable biodiversity. It is not surprising to be told that of California’s 7,000 plant species, about 50 per cent can be found on the Sierra Nevada and more than 20 per cent within the park itself.

Some 150 years ago, Galen Clark discovered the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia at Wawona, near the southern entrance to the park. Giant sequoias are the kings of conifers: tall, long-living trees that weigh nearly one million kilograms. Like Achilles of the Iliad, the sequoia is invulnerable except at the base, where its roots are surprisingly shallow for a tree of its size. At the Mariposa Grove, the choice facing visitors is a long uphill trek or an expensive Big Tree Tram Tour, but trek or ride, you are sure to run into chickaree squirrels actively helping in the seeding of the giants.

Visitors can drive up to Glacier Point to get a falcon’s view of the valley. This is where over 100 years ago John Muir handed his wish-list for the future of Yosemite to President Theodore Roosevelt. At the end of three days of campfires and stories of chickadees and great horned owls, Muir succeeded in getting the presidential signature on the list. But even with the best care in the world, the glaciers in the park are melting as global warming tightens its grip. Many Yosemite glaciers, including the Merced Glacier, have disappeared or lost the bulk of their surface area.

It is flower power that attracts visitors after the snowmelt to the Tuolumne Meadows. They wait for summer news of the meadows bursting into bloom and then undertake the spectacular drive passing Tenaya Lake en route. The wild flowers (including the California poppy) burst into bloom and cover vast expanses of the meadow. The dividends are not without deductions, however – the meadows are also home to battalions of mosquitoes that leave their mark on every person that comes to the place.
Not far from the gates is the glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley, the O'Shaughnessy Dam and the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The reservoir supplies drinking water and electricity to millions of homes in the San Francisco area. Hetch Hetchy is black bear turf. On every outdoor board are notices begging visitors to avoid leaving burgers and fries within easy reach of bears. For bears, it’s all in a day’s work to smash car windows or open the boot of an SUV. Hikers are advised to rent Bear Canisters or to leave food in the huge, ‘bear-proof’ containers located all over the park.

There are many visitors who never spot a squirrel and others who book profits seeing coyotes, mule deer and marmots. Mule deer and coyote are found all over the park. It is also an Elysium for bird watchers, both on the valley floor and at different elevations. Acorn woodpeckers, blue jays, Peregrine falcons, blackbirds and many more – the list runs long.

It’s only residents of the area who are able to provide an insight into the different moods of this National Park. In winter, the Yosemite is a revelation, said the owner of a B&B in nearby Groveland. Autumn is a gentle time, popular with visitors. Spring is when the snow melts in the High Sierras, of course, and when the place is released from the grip of winter. It is the moment when the rivers swell and overfeed every one of the waterfalls. In summer, the temperatures are in the mid-thirties, it is hot and dry and there is always the possibility of a thunderstorm at higher elevations. Whatever the weather though, Yosemite Valley is open all year round.

There is an early-bird advantage to staying or camping inside the Yosemite National Park, although advance booking is recommended. There are several B&Bs outside the park, too, which provide lavish breakfasts, camaraderie at the table, tips on insect repellents and opinions on many things, including just how close you can get to a mule deer.