Page 66 - 2020 Travel Guide to California

STATE & NATIONAL PARKS
BY BONNIE SMETTS
Naturally Awesome
Spend a day or fill a week exploring California’s natural grandeur
YOSEMITE
NATIONAL PARK
First protected by Abraham Lincoln in
1864, then championed by John Muir to
become a national park in 1890, Yosemite
is one of America’s most beloved and
visited national parks. It is known for its
soaring granite cliffs and majestic
waterfalls as well as some of the
country’s most dramatic and accessible
backcountry wilderness. Yosemite Valley,
where most visitors spend much of their
time, has a wide range of recreational
activities, including cycling to see the
sights, the best way to get around.
Scramble up boulders in Joshua Tree’s
Wonderland of Rocks. Time travel on a his-
toric ship in San Francisco Bay. Stand
beneath giant redwoods that author John
Steinbeck called ambassadors from another
time. Whatever your passion, California’s
280 state parks and 32 national parks,
seashores and monuments—whose mis-
sion is to protect the state’s natural and
cultural treasures—are the gateway to expe-
riences as varied as the state’s geography.
Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada
Yosemite National Park, with its glacier-
sculpted valley and granite peaks, is
justifiably one of the world’s natural treas-
ures. Come in spring when the waterfalls
thunder to the valley floor. Come in
summer when the park is abuzz with visi-
tors to explore by tram, bike or on foot.
Choose a gentle half-hour hike or reserve a
spot for the all-day climb up Half Dome.
Junior Ranger Walks are popular with kids.
Backpackers can enjoy the solitude of the
park’s high country and expert rock
climbers have dozens of granite walls to
scale. Don’t leave the park without stopping
at Glacier Point with its views of Half Dome
and Yosemite Valley or at the Mariposa
Grove of giant sequoias to marvel at its
2,700-year-old Grizzly Giant.
To see a really big tree—the world’s
largest by volume—head south to Sequoia
and Kings Canyon National Parks and
marvel at the weighty General Sherman.
While still in the mountains, take a trip to
Lake Tahoe, North America’s largest alpine
lake. Along the lake’s west shore, D.L. Bliss,
Emerald Bay and Sugar Pine Point state
parks offer camping, hiking and white sand
64 2020 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
DELAWARE NORTH IN YOSEMITE PARK. OPPOSITE: M01229/CREATIVE COMMONS/FLICKR; NOANYFRAMES/SHUTTERSTOCK