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UNTAMED CALIFORNIA: YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
Beyond beaches, Hollywood, and the Golden Gate Bridge, California hides a spectacular wilderness: Yosemite National Park. Over 100 years ago, John Muir visited this mountainous territory and was stunned by its natural beauty. His prolific writing about the land was key in encouraging the government to protect it, and in 1890, Congress made Yosemite one of the first U.S. wilderness parks. Several decades later, Ansel Adam’s photography showed Yosemite to the world. Since then, locals and travelers have explored nearly 1,200 square miles of waterfalls, peaks, domes, sequoia groves, meadows and valleys. Amidst ancient bedrock walls, the park is a continually evolving picture of wild beauty.
Learn more about Yosemite below…
- Located in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Yosemite wilderness is about a 300 mile drive from Los Angeles, and a 200 mile drive from San Francisco.
- John Muir said, "No temple made with hands can compare to Yosemite." The natural “temple” reaches pretty high–Yosemite’s tallest peak is Mt. Lyell, which reaches 13,114 ft.
- Yosemite’s dramatic bedrock landscape was shaped by glaciers during the last Ice Age.
- With three sections, Yosemite Falls (2,425 ft.) make up the tallest waterfall in North America. Other falls within the Park include Sentinel Fall at 2,000 ft, and Ribbon Fall, cascading down 1,612 ft.
- Ninety-five percent–that’s how much of Yosemite National Park is designated “Wilderness”. “Wilderness” is land protected from further development by Congress, “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
- Curious where the word “Yosemite” comes from? It literally means, “There are killers among them,” and is a variation of a Native American word used to describe the Ahwahneechee people. The Ahwahneechee are Native Americans who lived in the area for generations. Today, their descendents make up seven local tribes.
- John Muir made his first visit to Yosemite in 1868, and moved there just a year later. At one point, the writer supported himself by shepherding a flock of 2,000 sheep in the mountains for just $30 a month.
- Yosemite is blanketed by 35 tree species, approximately 1,500 flowering plant species, and 36,620 acres of meadow.
- Where’d the Falls go? Since Yosemite Falls is fed primarily by snowmelt, the Fall’s flow is strong throughout the spring, but can go completely dry around August.
- Ansel Adams first learned about Yosemite National Park at 14. While sick in bed, Adams read the book In the Heart of the Sierras, and his curiosity about the land began.
- Yosemite National Park welcomes 3.5 million visitors annually.
- Fire on the mountain! In the 1870s, a Yosemite hotel proprietor began a nighttime show by pushing fir bark embers over Glacier Point cliff. The result was a waterfall of fire and sparks. In 1968, the Firefall came to an end as the park attempted to eliminate man-made attractions and nighttime overcrowding.
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