Yosemite Best Hikes: A Bucket’s Worth of Bucket List Journeys

At Four Seasons our guides delight in showing guests trails and experiences they never knew about. But sometimes the famous hikes are famous for a reason – they are the best hikes. Such is the case with the Yosemite National Park…

Yosemite Falls. One of the ways to get on any list of Yosemite best hikes is to fit many iconic landmarks into a single camera frame. Upper Yosemite Falls qualifies on that score several times with its panoramic viewpoints of the valley, including a chance to snap Yosemite Falls and Half Dome with the same shot. Yosemite Falls is one of the tallest water drops of the planet – 2,425 total feet in three plunges. When you hike to the top of the falls you will be gaining all that elevation and a couple hundred more feet in the bargain. Think climbing the Washington Monument five times in a row. No surprise we clear an entire day for this seven-mile round trip.

Half Dome. When it was first scouted back in the 1860s the report came back: “Half Dome is perfectly inaccessible, being probably the only one of the prominent points about Yosemite which never has been, and never will be, trodden by human foot.” Luckily that downer of a report was ignored. It’s long and it’s hard (about 4,800 feet in elevation gain) but thousands complete this ultimate Yosemite hike each year. There are a lifetime of wonders along the way and the notorious cable system on the monolith itself that has been helping hikers the final 400 feet to the top since 1919.

Clouds Rest. The public relations department for Clouds Rest has not quite worked as hard as its neighbor, Half Dome. Clouds Rest is actually 1,000 feet higher and doesn’t require cables to summit. You get most of the same views of Yosemite Valley and the 360-view panorama at the top includes Half Dome itself as the high country of the Sierra Nevada spreads before you. About one thousand of the feet gained in elevation is tackled with switchbacks and more switchbacks.

Mist Trail. If there were a backyard scuffle for the title of “Signature Yosemite Hike,” the Mist Trail might come out the winner. The knock-your-boots-off scenic double-takes clip along at a regular pace on this journey out of the valley floor. The prime destinations are Vernal Falls (a 320-foot clifftop plunge) and Nevada Falls (a 594-foot cataract roaring past Liberty Cap). The trail earns its name honestly – the spray from the falls is a welcome relief.

Cathedral Lakes. The hike to these two granite-ringed High Sierra lakes in the eastern part of the park is along a stretch of the 210-mile John Muir Trail so you get a healthy dollop of history along with your incomparable Yosemite scenery. The Tuolumne Meadows, from which this route begins, are fringed to the south by the Cathedral Range and just about the entirety of this alpine hike takes place at an elevation higher than Half Dome.

Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. This is another alpine hike, also on the John Muir Trail. The destination is the highest of Yosemite’s cherished High Sierra Camps. The first opened on Merced Lake in 1916 and Vogelsang, named for one-time president of the California State Board of Fish and Game, was constructed in 1924 on the north shore of Boothe Lake. The canvas and frame buildings were shifted to their current location on Fletcher Creek in 1940. The hike blends some easy-going stretches with some uphill pulls and allows plenty of opportunity for the occasional side trip, a swim in a secluded lake and inspiring views of domes and jagged peaks. The final climb to Vogelsang Peak tops out at 11,500 feet.

Yosemite National Park’s best hikes can be best enjoyed with a professional and experienced guide, the right equipment and a group of fun people. If this sounds like the adventure you are ready for, come hike with us.