Yosemite Valley
Bridal Veil Falls
Yosemite Valley in Winter
yosemite national park
° California Wines ° Marin ° Museums
° San Francisco (Sailing and Kayaking) ° The Giants
° Napa and Sonoma ° The Peninsula: Half Moon Bay
° Mendocino County ° Shasta County ° Yosemite National Park
San Francisco to Yosemite and back is a long day tour (about 14 hours), but SO worth it. The drive through the San Joaquin Valley is quite beautiful and Yosemite is breaktaking. During a full day tour you will have time to take a short hike to the fall or visit Yosemite Lodge. Watch the rock climbers dangling from El Capitan (WHY do they do that???), rent bikes, tour the visitors center . . .
If you like crafts, pick up one of the basket weaving kits at the visitor's center (or pick a weaving kit
from this link). Even though they supply materials, you can be as creative as you want with these kits. These are excellent family projects . . . The baskets here were made from kits we picked up in Yosemite AND from pine needles picked up on the valley floor. Both the kits and the baskets are excellent gifts and a great for holding small pieces of jewelry.
Yosemite's first residents were Native Americans who may have first inhabited the region as many as 10,000 years ago. The area's most recent tribe (comprised mostly of Miwok, but also Paiute and others) named Yosemite Valley "Ahwahnee" or "place of the gaping mouth," and thus they called themselves the Ahwahneechee. These Native Americans had a rich culture and were frequent traders with tribes from the eastern side of the Sierra.
In 1855, the first tourists visited Yosemite. As more visitors came to Yosemite via horseback and stagecoach, entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to provide goods and services in this remote destination. Soon, lodging and homes were built and meadows became home to livestock and orchards. By 1864, there were residents living in Yosemite Valley all year long.
Also around 1855, a homesteader in southern Yosemite, came across the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. The homesteader, Galen Clark, was so impressed with the trees, that he would start a fight to preserve them from logging. Soon after, that fight would include preserving Yosemite Valley. After gathering support from photographer Carlton Watkins, and U.S. Senator John Conness, the Yosemite Grant was drafted and submitted to Congress.
In 1864, during the heat of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant that protected Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias as the first territory ever set aside by Congress for public use and preservation.
In 1906, Yosemite National Park incorporated the “Yosemite Grant” into its borders; following that, in 1916, the newly created National Park Service would take over the role.
Yosemite's Artists
Perhaps no single person has done more to bring Yosemite to the world's attention than the photographer Ansel Adams. His images of Yosemite Valley (left), Half Dome and Lower Yosemite Falls surely have a place in everyone's mind and heart.
Another fine artist who captured the translucent beauty of Yosemite was Albert Bierstadt
Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude