Yosemite National Park spans nearly 1,200 square miles of the Sierra Nevada, famous for the sheer granite faces of El Capitan and Half Dome, giant sequoia groves in the Mariposa Grove, and waterfalls that thunder down the valley walls each spring. Yosemite Valley itself is the park’s most visited section and the base for most first-time trips.
May and June bring peak waterfall flow from snowmelt, and the broader May-through-September window is when all park roads, trails, lodging, and shuttles are typically open. Winter and early spring can close high-elevation roads like Tioga Pass, so it’s worth checking conditions before a visit outside summer.
Because the park has no single town at its center, most visitors base themselves in a gateway community such as Mariposa, Oakhurst, or Groveland, each with its own access route into the valley.