Yosemite Valley — Attraction in Oakhurst

We took the western route into the park from Madera, CA. Traffic estimate was 2 hours and kept fluctuating (60/45/20 minutes delays expected); it wasn’t bad and the large crowds should be expected for a holiday week. A $2 reservation was required for the time period we visited and it was easy to reserve and prepay for the vehicle entrance fee. We actually were able to use the employee line since we had the pass + lifetime national park pass. FREE Passes are available for military, seniors, fourth graders, people with disabilities, etc. so great savings to see all national parks. Since we arrived just after noon, we rode the one-way street to the welcome center - with a stop or two to take in the views on the way. Welcome area has bathrooms, a visiting center, a “grill” restaurant (serving hamburgers, hotdogs, fish sandwiches, chicken tenders, etc.) and large/shopping store, which came in handy at the end of the day snacks for the ride back.

We rode the shuttle over to the Lower Falls and walked that short path over to the falls; there are people, climbing or scaling the mountain and some playing in the stream below. Much of my group traveled down through the rocks to get into the stream. It was the highlight of our time there the waterfall! It was all so beautiful. Back on the shuttle and off at El Capitan. Majestic and amazing. We got back to welcome center/Yosemite parking, and headed out towards tunnel view. Simply gorgeous. I loved it all but I won’t be returning because driving those mountain roads are so terrifying for me and personally not worth the anxiety it causes. Shout out to the shuttle drivers who were very kind. We lost two phones and they recovered them and waited at welcome center to...

The last time I visited California (some 29 years ago) I somehow neglected to visit Yosemite; a fact that ate away at me for years. Well I finally managed to redress my error and made it to this wondrous place in September and October 2019. To be honest, having now scratched the surface of it, I’m pretty certain another visit will be planned at some point in the future. Yes, it gets incredibly busy, yes everything is designed to extract the maximum amount of money from your wallet, but yes you’ll do it anyway just to be able to experience it. The place will charm, delight and astound in equal measure, and if you ever get the opportunity to visit, don’t make the Sam mistake I made all...

Yosemite National Park is absolutely beautiful being so close to a major metropolitan center like San Francisco / Silicon Valley makes this park very accessible to a very large population. While it is an incredibly beautiful park it is not the best in terms of the amount of people who come to visit. I will say this is without a doubt one of America’s most beautiful spaces it should be visited during times when there are the least amount of people. I will give a more in-depth review but encouraging people to visit this park might be environmentally concerning when it’s...