Yosemite National Park Back Country Hiking

What are good hikes to take in Yosemite?

I am often asked by our guests what are the best hikes to take. To answer the question I normally like to speak with our visitors to get an idea of their hiking experience, physical condition, and mental outlook. So without speaking with you directly I will leave it up to you to make a personal assessment of your abilities, desires and strengths.

The park offers many kinds of hiking exeriences. On average, about 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, and most spend the majority of their time in the seven square miles of Yosemite Valley. The park set a visitation record in 2016, surpassing 5 million visitors for the first time in its history.

THE LANDSCAPE TO CONSIDER

The park's elevation ranges from 2000 feet to 13,114 feet (600m to 4,000m), containing groves of Giant Sequoia trees many over 2,000 years old, to breath-taking valleys carved by glaciers. The highest waterfall in America can be found here, as well as alpine meadows filled with rivers, cascades, lakes, and wildflowers.

Half Dome and El Capitan rise from the central glacier-formed Yosemite Valley, as does Yosemite Falls, North America's tallest waterfall. Three Giant Sequoia groves and vast wilderness are home to diverse wildlife.

Yosemite National Park spans portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in Northern California. The park covers an area of 1,168.681 sqare miles, and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range.

The park contains over 800 miles of hiking trails mostly through wilderness. While the Yosemite Valley has some pretty accessible and flat trails, most trails in the park are steep and challenging.

So you see answering what good hikes to take would depend on what you want to see, how fit you are, and how equiped you are. For more technical information on knowledge, and equipment click here for my article on hiking Yosemite.