Heidi and Josh's Guide to Yosemite

SOMEWHERE OVER TENNESSEE (June 6) — You’ll find lots of information about Yosemite National Park on the Internet. But for that unique mix of useless trivia, unvarnished opinion, and the very occasional useful tidbit you’ve come to expect from BTN, we thought we’d offer our own observations from half a honeymoon spent in the park or on its southern edge. So, without further ado, here are our suggestions for how to make your Yosemite adventure worth your while.

• Go during the week. Go during the week, go during the week, go during the week. I can’t emphasize this strongly enough if you’re a summer visitor. You’ll be sharing the park, especially Yosemite Valley, with every variety of tourist on Earth on Saturday and Sunday.
• That said, if you must be there over the weekend, try to do things on the edges of the park or outside it. The Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron gigantium) is your best bet; Glacier Point is also a decent choice, as being 30 minutes off Highway 41 thins the crowd a bit. Make sure you have a Friday or Monday to do the valley.
• If the road is wide enough (usually in the valley), pull off if you see something, take pictures and enjoy it. Everyone else is doing it. If the road is wide enough, that’s the reason why. Trust me, the Park Service doesn’t make roads any wider than it has to.
• Speaking of which, road quality in the region, ordered by maintaining organization, goes from best to worst: Caltrans (California state highways), Forest Service (paved roads only), NPS. When you fly into California from any other state but perhaps Pennsylvania, you’ll think Caltrans roads are atrocious (complete with button-copy signs the likes of which the rest of the country hasn’t seen since the ’70s). You’ll learn better very quickly, hopefully not by straying over the three-inch shoulder the NPS provides.
• Also speaking of which, if there’s a big crowd pulling over suddenly along the valley roads, there’s probably wildlife wandering the meadow. Go ahead and stop, but leave yourself enough room in front of your car to get away quickly. Other tourists will cross the road and try to interfere with a mother bear and her cubs. This is your cue to leave, unless you’re looking to be interviewed on CNN under a “Tragedy at Yosemite” graphic.
• The valley meadows are full of standing water. You will, therefore, be mosquito food. Bring repellent, buy repellent, do something, but you’re playing for a tie at best unless you walk around in a mosquito-netting burqa. *Know your car. This is a challenge, since it’s probably a rental. Try to get a model you’ve driven before, though, unless you like guessing at where your right-side wheels are on the aforementioned three-inch shoulders. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to spring for the V6, either. You have a lot of climbing to do: 2000 feet from the Central Valley to your likely lodging in Oakhurst or Mariposa, 3000 feet from there to the park entrance, and perhaps another 2800 from Highway 41 to Glacier Point. *In a similar vein, many of the other people on the roads will have rented RVs they now realize they have no business driving on roads this narrow. They’re scared. They should be. You should be too. Take a turnout, take some pictures, and stay away.
• Tour buses are the enemy.
• Don’t trust the maps! They’re not always accurate, partially because the road network is itself a little bit odd due to some backtracking and closures to non-bus traffic. Signs are slightly more useful, and crowds are, unfortunately, the best.
• If you don’t see a waterfall, look again. One is there, you just missed it.
• Allow yourself lots of time to get from one attraction to the next. You’ll want to drive slowly to enjoy the view, and even if you don’t, other people will.
• Speaking of which, bring food and water. If you get hungry at 1:00 in the Mariposa Grove, you’re looking at 2:30 for lunch unless you leave the park and brave the entrance traffic jams again. Don’t leave it in your car, though! Once all the humans leave, your vehicle looks like a big, lonely metal lunchbox to bears.
• Don’t feed any other animals, either. Those signs are there for a reason.
• So are the signs on fences around trees that say “Don’t cross.” Trees have roots. Roots absorb water, water-dissolved minerals, and oxygen from soil. Your feet compact the soil, crushing out pore space where water and oxygen are stored. That hurts the trees. Don’t hurt the trees!
• Sunglasses are a must. So is a visor or a hat. You’ll be looking toward the sun a lot, so your face will need some time in the shade.
• That goes for your camera too: remember the lens hood, if your camera came with one. You’ll look rather funny trying to shield the lens with your left hand while shooting with your right, and you won’t realize some pictures need it until you download them and they’re washed out.
• Ask other people to take pictures of you. They probably want pictures of themselves too. Talk to them, they could come from anywhere from Carolina to Canberra. The ones from Canberra get ten weeks of vacation per year. Try not to get jealous.
• Also try not to get annoyed when the union tram driver talks about working a seasonal job and collecting unemployment for the rest of the year as her natural right. Save it for when the tram loses air-brake pressure 2/3 of the way through the Mariposa Grove, she shows no interest in calling for a replacement, and you have to walk back down.
• Glacier Point is not the place to talk loudly about your drunken escapades the week before. (Neither is anyplace else, really.) Kids can be loud, they’re having fun, but adults should observe quietly in wonder. Your model should be the elderly lady walking back towards the parking area who mused quietly, “This is the most spectacular thing I have seen in my life.”

Stay tuned for pictures! (Once we winnow the initial 5 GB set a bit…)