This guide contains 50 accessible, easy-to-follow day hikes for Yosemite National Park
and Vicinity.

Overview Map

Acknowledgments

The Very Best Short Hikes

Introduction

Using This Book

Map Legend

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir



1. Lookout Point


2. Poopenaut Valley


3. Wapama Falls



Yosemite Valley


4. Base of El Capitan


5. Bridalveil Falls


6. Upper Yosemite Fall


7. Lower Yosemite Fall


8. Swinging Bridge and Superintendent's Bridge


9. Mirror Lake


10. Base of Vernal Fall


11. Mist Trail and Clark Point



Glacier Point Road and Wawona


12. McGurk Meadow


13. Taft Point


14. Sentinel Dome


15. Glacier Point


16. Four Mile Trail


17. Panorama Trail


18. Lower Chilnualna Falls


19. Wawona Meadow


20. Mariposa Grove



Tioga Road and Tenaya Lake


21. Merced Grove


22. Crane Flat Lookout


23. Tuolumne Grove


24. Lukens Lake (from White Wolf )


25. May Lake


26. Mount Hoffmann


27. Olmsted Point


28. Tenaya Lake



Tuolumne Meadows


29. Pothole Dome


30. Tuolumne River


31. Lower Cathedral Lake


32. Cathedral Peak Shoulder


33. Elizabeth Lake


34. Soda Springs and Tuolumne Meadows


35. Dog Lake


36. Lembert Dome


37. Lyell Canyon



Tioga Pass


38. Mono Pass


39. Gaylor Lakes and Great Sierra Mine


40. Mount Dana


41. Dana Plateau


42. Bennettville


43. Gardisky Lake


44. Slate Creek Fork of Lee Vining Creek


45. Twenty Lakes Basin


46. Conness Lakes



Mono Lake and Vicinity


47. Lee Vining Visitor Center to Mono Lake


48. Lee Vining Creek


49. South Tufa


50. Panum Crater

Hikes at a Glance

Index

About the Author

Since childhood, Elizabeth "Lizzy" Wenk has hiked and climbed in the Sierra Nevada with her family. After she started college, she found excuses to spend every summer in the Sierra, with its beguiling landscape, abundant flowers, and near-perfect weather. During those summers, she worked as a research assistant for others and completed her own Ph.D. thesis research on the effects of rock type on alpine plant distribution and physiology. But much of the time, she hikes simply for leisure. Obsessively wanting to explore every bit of the Sierra, she has hiked thousands of on- and off-trail miles and climbed more than 600 peaks in the mountain range. Many of her wanderings are now directed to gather data for several Wilderness Press titles and to introduce her two young daughters to the wonders of the mountains. For them as well, Yosemite is rapidly becoming a favorite location. Until recently a resident of Bishop, California, Wenk is currently living in Sydney, Australia, with her husband, Douglas, and daughters, Eleanor and Sophia. There she is working as a research fellow at Macquarie University and enjoying Australia's exquisite eucalyptus forests, vegetated slot canyons, and wonderful birdlife-except during the Northern Hemisphere summer, which she continues to spend exploring the Sierra.