Known the world over for its great granite cliffs and domes, enormous waterfalls and giant sequoias, Yosemite is everything a national park should be and more. Such well known Yosemite Valley destinations as Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and Yosemite Falls, Half Dome and Happy Isles are magnets for hikers. Equally attractive are many more sights outside the valley: Mt. Dana, Tuolomne Meadows, Cathedral Peak, Hetch Hetchy, the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees and many more.
The park boasts a magnificent High Sierra backcountry, one that (by rather severe Sierra standards anyway) is quite accessible. Well-marked trails lead to wildflower-festooned alpine meadows, lovely lakes and tarns, trails and cross-country routes to peaks.
Most people when asked to link a person to a place and that place is Yosemite say “John Muir.” It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. The great naturalist’s pioneering work in glacier theory and passionate efforts to make Yosemite a park have long been admired and will be appreciated by generations to come.
I, however, also associate Yosemite with a far-less known nature writer by the name of Joseph Smeaton Chase.
Who?
Chase was a British-born, Los Angeles social worker who ventured into California’s backcountry during the first two decades of the twentieth century and left us a trio of nature classics: California Desert Trails, California Coast Trails and Yosemite Trails.
His first book, Yosemite Trails, published in 1912, describes three long outings in the park from the Wawona, Hetch Hetchy and Tuolumne areas. Chase reveled in the majesty and solitude of the backcountry: “As we moved quietly along I was free to notice the thousand and one things that make up the silent conversation of the trail.
Chase got good reviews from the Eastern and foreign press and raves from such California publications as Out West magazine: “If you have wanted all your life to make a trip to Yosemite and cannot go, the next best thing is to read Yosemite Trails by J. Smeaton Chase. You will forget while reading it that you are not there, and when you have finished you will find a way to go.”
With all due respect to Chase’s book, it seems, in hindsight, that critics and readers responded more to the park than his prose. Yosemite has that kind of effect on people: bigger than words. Larger than life. A visit stays with you forever.
My visits to Yosemite were Baby Boom typical. My parents took me as a tiny tike in the 1950s, and as a teen in the 1960s. We camped in Yosemite Valley, stayed in the creaky little Curry cabins, floated on inner tubes in the Merced River, hiked to Mirror Lake when it was still a lake, watched the evening Fire-fall from Glacier Point, enjoyed ranger talks and naturalist-led walks.
As a young adult (the word is used hesitantly) I hung out with the hippies in Tuolomne Meadows and after graduation from college, hiked the Yosemite backcountry and the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney.
These days I bring my own family to Yosemite to enjoy the same scenic grandeur and experiences (minus the discontinued Firefall!) that I enjoyed while growing up.
But my family--and everyone else who visits Yosemite these days--certainly has more company than ever before. Park visitation increased from about a million visitors a year in the 1950s to two million a year in the 1960s to four million a year in the 1990s. Then and now such heavy visitation sometimes results in summer traffic jams in Yosemite Valley, and crowding at overlooks, concessions, Yosemite Village and on the shuttle bus system.
In fact, traffic and crowding in Yosemite Valley have been among the National Park Service’s worst problems for three decades. Plans to reduce auto traffic in the valley by extensive use of buses, as well as other management plans to reduce congestion, have not been implemented. When the Park Service carries out its intentions to ease traffic and reduce commercial facilities, the pay-off will be a richer park experience for hikers and visitors of all kinds.
Unlike the motorist, diner or souvenir shopper, the hiker feels fewer effects of Yosemite’s crowds. With the exception of the heavily trafficked “waterfall trails” and a couple other valley footpaths, the hiker is far less likely to feel the impact of such crowding.
Yosemite’s trails are for the most part well-engineered, well-maintained and well-signed. Opportunities for summer solitude may be few on the major trails, but the farther away from a roadhead one hikes, the greater the opportunity for tranquility. “Well-used” is a better characterization of most Yosemite trails than “overused.” The journey on these pathways is often as pleasurable as the famed destinations they reach.
John Muir’ suggested hikes in his 1912 Yosemite guidebook were 25 miles long. One can only imagine hikers of that era were of sturdier stock--or else few followed in Muir’s footsteps.
--The trail up Mt. Dana was constructed at the behest of esteemed Yosemite botanist Dr. Carl Sharsmith who designed a route that minimized human impact on the mountain’s fragile flora.
--Yosemite Falls Trail, like some other early(1870s) paths, was privately built and operated as a toll trail.
--Mirror Lake was once auto-accessible; now the road to the lake is a walking path.
Some Yosemite Valley Trails are accessible all year. While the park has glaciated peaks that rise to more than 13,000 feet in elevation, Yosemite Valley is less than a mile high and some park areas are even below 3,000 feet. In spring, Yosemite’s waterfalls are at their most majestic. In summer, alpine slopes burst into bloom. Autumn is a favorite time for a walk. The “Range of Light” is particularly dramatic and the aspens glow like fire in the wind.
At any moment on any hike in Yosemite National Park you might just notice what nature writer Joseph Smeaton Chase called “the thousand and one things that make up the silent conversation of the trail.”
Entrance to park $20 per vehicle, $10 per bus passenger, bicyclist or walk-in. Free shuttle in east end of Yosemite Valley (year-round) and between Wawona and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias and from Tuolumne Meadow to Tenaya Lake (June-Sept). Wilderness permit (free in person $5 for telephone reservations) required for backcountry camping (209-372-0740). See our fees and seasons page for more information >>
An Introduction 