Stephen T. Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, employed park rangers to guide tourists and protect parks from poachers. In 1920, Mather hired architect Charles Summer to construct a home for members of his newly organized ranger . . . — — Map (db m65629) HM
Mirror Lake was once regarded by park scientists as a stream-fed lake slowly filling in to become a meadow. As hydrologists have developed a more complex understanding of the water's dynamics, they now theorize that the "lake" is a pool in a . . . — — Map (db m81952)
The open vista below you, Big Meadows, has many stories to share. American Indians have been using this area for thousands of years. It was also center of activity for some of the first Euro-American settlers. By 1874, the Coulterville and Yosemite . . . — — Map (db m65578) HM
Ever-Changing Scene
In Yosemite, you may never witness the same scene twice.
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise, somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal . . . — — Map (db m63596) HM
A Burning Tradition
Miwok people, who called themselves Ahwahneechee, lived in Yosemite Valley for thousands of years. Their traditional practice of regularly burning the meadows and oak woodlands of the Valley contributed to the open . . . — — Map (db m63597) HM
This nine-foot section of a giant sequoia was cut 30 feet from the base of a tree that fell in the Mariposa Grove in 1919. Annual rings show the tree's to be 996 years old, but at the base of the tree, where the diameter was 14 feet, the age was . . . — — Map (db m192082) HM
Just above Mirror Lake, bracken ferns grow in large tracts. The root-like portion of the fern (rhizome) is favored for making the black designs in Southern Miwok and Mono Lake Paiute baskets. Because of the rich sandy sediments here, bracken fern . . . — — Map (db m81953) HM
At certain times of the year some of the Valley’s waterfalls disappear. Bridalveil keeps flowing even in late summer, when Yosemite Falls begins to dry up.
Above Yosemite Falls the terrain is largely bare granite; runoff is rapid. Bridalveil . . . — — Map (db m63589) HM
After leading the first tourist party into Yosemite Valley in 1855, entrepreneur James Hutchings promoted the Valley’s “Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity” in his own .California Magazine. Not long after, a steadily increasing stream . . . — — Map (db m65506) HM
El Capitan is famous for its massive bulk of largely unbroken rock and its sheer, vertical face soaring 3,000 feet into the air. This monolith is composed of a particularly durable granite, allowing it to withstand the pressures of glaciers and . . . — — Map (db m81949) HM
You are standing on the site of two famous Yosemite landmarks: McCauley’s Mountain House (1872-1969) and the Glacier Point Hotel (1917-1969). Both structures were built from trees cut down near this site. They both burned to the ground on the . . . — — Map (db m100858) HM
Geologic processes that created Yosemite Valley include glaciation, erosion, rockfalls, and earthquakes. Most of these processes are still at work here, shaping and reshaping the land. Ancient glaciers have left dramatic geologic evidence virtually . . . — — Map (db m81948) HM
After bringing the first tourists to Yosemite Valley, James Hutchings established Hutchings House in 1864. Using the boardinghouse know-how of his mother-in-law, he and his wife launched a career as Yosemite innkeepers. Hutchings was a gracious . . . — — Map (db m65505) HM
In 1869, innkeeper James Hutchings hired a young wilderness explorer named John Muir to rebuild and operate his sawmill. Muir worked here for almost two years, milling trees blown down in a storm to build improvements at Hutchings’ Yosemite Valley . . . — — Map (db m66101) HM
LeConte Memorial Lodge was built by the Sierra Club in 1803/04 in honor of the world-renowned scientist and charter Sierra Club member Joseph LeConte who died near here in 1901. The memorial served as Yosemite Valley's first public information . . . — — Map (db m65529) HM
For centuries, the local Indians use the bracken fern found above Mirror Lake. In the 1800s, Euro-American entrepreneurs found new uses for the area's resources. Hotel owners marketed the magnificent scenery to an enthusiastic audience or travelers. . . . — — Map (db m81951) HM
Perhaps only three or four hundred years ago, an enormous rockfall dumped boulders across this canyon, damming Tenaya Creek. During spring and early summer, the stream backs up into the two pools on either side of the dam.
Tinkering with . . . — — Map (db m81950) HM
This turnout was named in honor of famed landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), and his son, Frederick, Jr. when Tioga road opened to automobile traffic in 1961. Olmsted senior was considered the father of American landscape . . . — — Map (db m65531) HM
On this site President Theodore Roosevelt sat beside a campfire with John Muir on May 17, 1903 and talked forest good. Muir urged the President to work for preservation and priceless remnants of America’s wilderness. At this spot one of our . . . — — Map (db m62853) HM
Where the Old Village once stood, little evidence remains. In its heyday, thousands of tourists arrived on horseback, in wagons, and in early Model T Fords. They danced, bathed, and slept here. Today this is hard to imagine, as the meadow seems so . . . — — Map (db m65527) HM
Mirror Lake's magnificent scenery was as much a commodity to be harvested as was the ice and sand. In the 1860s, entrepreneurs built a toll road to the lake, and here at the end of the carriage road, they opened an inn in 1870. Later the inn became . . . — — Map (db m81962) HM
The log, trestle-roofed entranceway to The Ahwahnee hotel is called the “porte cochere.” The hotel’s architect had originally intended that automobiles enter a porte cochere from the meadow side of the hotel through the space where the . . . — — Map (db m65503) HM
This marker is composed of four plaques secured front and back to two pillars.
Adapting to a New Life
For thousands of years, Indians adapted to climate changes, fires and droughts in the Sierra. They also survived conflicts with . . . — — Map (db m65632) HM
Along with other accomplished artists of his time, including Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, Thomas Hill's large-scale oil paintings of Yosemite captured the attention of people across America, visually introducing them to magnificence of . . . — — Map (db m84190) HM
The first director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather, was as at home in the High Sierra as he was in high society. To ensure Yosemite’s protection for future generations, he knew that influential people would have to care about the . . . — — Map (db m65504) HM
Before you lies the site of the Old Yosemite Village. Stretching between the Four Mile Trail and Sentinel Bridge, it was a bustling hamlet during the late 1800s and early 1900s. It consisted of guest cottages, photo studios, a hotel, bathhouse, . . . — — Map (db m65528) HM
Millions of years ago the granite block of Half Dome was larger, but there was never a matching half. Undercut by glaciers near the base, slabs of rock fell away from a broad vertical crack in the granite, leaving a sheer face. Remnants of the . . . — — Map (db m81963) HM
The opening of Yosemite to tourism in the 1850s coincided with America's glorification of nature and fascination with the picturesque. Early accounts of Mirror Lake are full of such sentiments. Visitors today still express many of the same emotions . . . — — Map (db m81961) HM
Nowhere else on earth are there so many spectacular waterfalls in such a concentrated area.
During the spring, torrents of water from melted snow thunder over Yosemite's precipices. By August, the "ephemeral" falls disappear; others, like the . . . — — Map (db m81943) HM
People have been coming to Glacier Point for generations to see one of the most spectacular views on earth. For a panoramic vista of Yosemite Valley, walk along the trail to Glacier Point, located ¼ mile from where you’re now standing. Along the . . . — — Map (db m63610) HM
Through the collective recognition of the Community of Nations
expressed within the Principles of the
Convention concerning Protection of the World
Cultural and Natural Heritage, Yosemite National Park
has been designated a
World Heritage . . . — — Map (db m235569) HM
On June 30, 1864 the United States granted the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the State of California to "be held for public use, resort and recreation...inalienable for all time." This act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, . . . — — Map (db m81941) HM
The CCC began work in Yosemite in May 1933. During the ensuing years, significant projects included the Half Dome cable system, Badger Pass Ski Complex, Henness Ridge Lookout Tower, numerous park structures and many miles of hiking and riding . . . — — Map (db m155198) HM
This tablet commemorates
the successful labors of
Stephen T. Mather
Director of the National Park Service
in securing for the people
The Tioga Pass Road.
Dedicated to the enduring memory
of a faithful public servant
by the . . . — — Map (db m65574) HM
As early as 1860, prospectors explored Mono Pass in search of rich rock. Here, among the glacially carved granite and craggy peaks of the Sierra crest, these hardy men discovered silver deposits and went to work in hopes of fortune.
Buildings of . . . — — Map (db m65577) HM
