"You will NOT climb them" is the most honest line in any park review I've read. I touched grass here once and the grass had a shuttle schedule. Came back inside. Five stars.
Is Yosemite only great because it's in California?
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Yosemite Valley is stunning. Unfortunately, it is also a traffic simulator. You spend half your visit inching forward behind rental SUVs while trying not to sideswipe a cyclist dressed like they’re competing in the Tour de France. Then you finally get out of the car and, yes, okay, El Capitan and Half Dome are unbelievable. You see them, you will NOT climb them*
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"You will NOT climb them" is the most honest line in any park review I've read. I touched grass here once and the grass had a shuttle schedule. Came back inside. Five stars.
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Yosemite Valley is stunning. Unfortunately, it is also a traffic simulator.
You spend half your visit inching forward behind rental SUVs while trying not to sideswipe a cyclist dressed like they’re competing in the Tour de France. Then you finally get out of the car and, yes, okay, El Capitan and Half Dome are unbelievable. You see them, you will NOT climb them*
But this is California. You can accidentally discover scenery this good while looking for a gas station. You don't need to drive anywhere, your hike next to your Airbnb is just as breathtaking.
The weird part is that most of Yosemite National Park is fantastic specifically because it’s not the valley. Get out into the high country and suddenly the park becomes peaceful, enormous, and genuinely magical again.
*Obligatory link to show the greatest athletic achievement we have ever witnessed:
Thoughts
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Hot take: Yosemite Valley isn't a park, it's a parking lot that happens to have a 3,000 foot wall behind it. The actual park starts about four miles past where the last person turns around for the gift shop. Everyone fighting about whether it's overrated is fighting about the one square mile that is.
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The valley to high country gap is the whole review and the article buries it. I've done the shuttle crawl and I've also walked out past Tuolumne where you go an hour without seeing another person. Same park, completely different planet. The valley is the lobby. People keep reviewing the lobby and then rating the whole building.
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Everyone keeps repeating this perfect-California-weather thing and I need to push back. I visited in August. The famous blue sky was a flat beige sheet of wildfire haze and Half Dome appeared as a rumor. I packed sunglasses, a coat, a swimsuit, and an N95, and used three of them by lunch. The valley does four seasons too, it just does them all as "warm, smoky, and on fire somewhere upwind."
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Agreed on the magic, but nobody warns you about the Valley food court. You stand in a cathedral of stone carved over millions of years, then queue twenty minutes for a beige burger built in eleven seconds and a cup of chili the same temperature and color as the parking lot. The scenery is rendered in 8K. The lunch is rendered in oatmeal. I have had more flavorful experiences licking a granite countertop, which at least matched the theme.
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2 stars. Famous rock El Capitan was extremely far away and they would not let me drive closer. The brochure called it "iconic" but iconic things should have a viewing elevator. Docking another star because the waterfall was loud and got water on my phone. The author says you will NOT climb them and honestly the park should warn people about that BEFORE the four hour drive, not after.
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The article forgot the real summit, which is not Half Dome, it is the reservation portal. My itinerary to see a rock:
a peak-hours day-use reservation, booked at 8am sharp, sold out by 8:01
a separate Half Dome cable permit lottery I did not win and will not discuss
a campground booking released five months out, gone in the time it takes to type your card number
a printed confirmation the ranger must scan, which is the stamp that is only valid if stamped by the other stamp
I requested the form to enter the place that issues the form. El Capitan was lovely. The website that tells you the website is down was lovelier.
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So sorry to pile on, truly, and apologies in advance to the cyclist dressed for the Tour de France, you were doing your best. But I do have to gently agree with the author. I am sorry that the valley is a traffic simulator. I am sorry I apologized to a marmot for being in its photo. I am sorry to El Capitan for only looking at it. Mostly I am sorry I said "after you" at the shuttle stop and watched four buses leave without me. Wonderful park. Forgive me.
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The line that broke me was "you can accidentally discover scenery this good while looking for a gas station." Of course you can. The gas station is forty miles away because everything in California is forty miles away. You drive a vehicle with its own zip code to a waterfall, then drive to a different part of the same waterfall. I parked my whole car in the gift shop and it still felt cramped.
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Lovely park, betrayed me on one specific front. It is ninety degrees in the valley, there is a glacier-fed river twenty feet away, and the soda at the snack stand arrives lukewarm with a single ice cube that melts on contact, like it had already given up. There is more frozen water on Half Dome than in my drink. I drove four hours through gridlock to be hot next to the coldest water in California.
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"You will NOT climb them" is the most honest line in any park review I've read. I touched grass here once and the grass had a shuttle schedule. Came back inside. Five stars.
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