Explore Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park is in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s famed for its giant, ancient sequoia trees, and for Tunnel View, the iconic vista of towering Bridalveil Fall and the granite cliffs of El Capitan and Half Dome. Visitors from around the world travel to California each year to visit this iconic National park.

We are huge believers that there is no bad day in Yosemite, but there are so many missed opportunities by most visitors when it comes to Yosemite.  This page is designed to help you discover more of one of the nations most popular parks.  

Here are a few facts that you might not know of Yosemite:

1. Yosemite might be our nation’s 3rd national park, but it sparked the idea of national parks. Twenty-six years before it was a national park, President Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant on June 30, 1864, protecting the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley. It was the first time the government protected land because of its natural beauty so that people could enjoy it, and we’re still benefiting from their foresight today.

2. Yosemite’s granite rock formations glow like fire at sunset. Sunlight plays amazing tricks at Yosemite — illuminating El Capitan and Half Dome in brilliant reds and oranges. Horsetail Fall is famous for appearing to be on fire when it reflects the orange glow of sunset in mid- to late-February. It’s a spectacular sight reminiscent of Yosemite’s historic Firefall, which occurred nightly until 1968, when hotel operators would push campfire embers over Glacier Point to wow park goers.

3. The park’s diverse landscape supports more than 400 species. While at Yosemite, look all around and you might spy one of the park’s many amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals looking back. One such animal is the rare Sierra Nevada red fox, which was spotted for the first time in nearly 100 years on a wildlife cam, roaming the high elevations of California’s Sierra Nevada.

4. Yosemite is home to one of the tallest waterfalls in the world. At 2,425 feet, Yosemite Falls is one of tallest on the planet, but did you know, it’s actually made up of three separate falls? Upper Yosemite Fall, the middle cascades and Lower Yosemite Fall makeup Yosemite Falls, which can be seen from numerous places around Yosemite Valley.