Yosemite 2010

Introduction

2010 is the year of the national park for us. This month we are going to visit Yosemite, our fourth national park this summer (in July we visited Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier). It is the favorite park of several of our friends, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they like. We are traveling with Jeff and Donna, two of our favorite traveling companions. Normally I’m the trip planner, but this trip we asked our friend, Jeff, to work up the itinerary. He did an excellent job, and I really liked the progression of activities that he worked out. The only thing we couldn’t fit in was a side trip to Sequoia, because of a fire at Kings Canyon (I don’t think we can hold him responsible for that).

Lincoln signed The Yosemite Grant on June 30, 1864. This gave the state the right to protect Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove. In 1872 Yosemite became our first National Park. On October 1, 1890 Congress set aside 1500 square miles for Yosemite National Park. These maps are from the National Park website. You can download a larger PDF of the valley map from the site.

The National Park Service website has a lot of information on Yosemite. There is even a link called “plan your visit” that has some helpful hints on the best season to see the park.

The rule of thumb for all the national parks is to make your reservation one year in advance. We made our reservation six months in advance and couldn’t get rooms in the valley. We stayed in a wonderful resort just outside the south entrance. But it would have been nice to have been able to roll out of bed and hit the trails from the hotel room. You can find the website to make reservations in Yosemite here.

Go forward to September 20