Yosemite Stories — Yosemite Conservancy

Yosemite Stories

To celebrate our centennial, we have been asking Yosemite enthusiasts far and wide to tell us their Yosemite stories, and what began their connection to the park. Explore the myriad stories of daring, quiet awe, moments that changed people — and so much more — as we celebrate the wonder of Yosemite.

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A photograph of a marmot on granite at Glacier Point, looking out over Yosemite. By Linda Wurstner

Early in 2022 I had my first major hiking accident. I was in North Alabama hiking along the side of Peterson’s Pit, which is a lush sinkhole with rare plants that is near my brothers home. One false step and into the pit you go — probably the last hike you would make. As I

Linda Wurstner

Jim Seybert, smiling on a recent trip to Wawona

My first visit to Yosemite was at 6-months old, in 1955. I accompanied my folks on a camping trip and we stayed at Camp Four. Dad worked for the phone company in San Francisco and Yosemite was part of his regional territory, so we would come up 2-3 times each year. We almost always stayed

Jim Seybert

Braid Kopling performing as Laura Mahan.

When I was young, Lee Stetson, who played John Muir was still doing nature walks in Yosemite in character. I remember walking hand in hand through a meadow in Yosemite while holding “John Muir’s” hand at the age of just six, or seven. Today, at 48, I portray Laura Mahan, the major redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)

Braid Kopling

My lifelong BFF had somehow never made it Yosemite. She had a few trips planned but it never worked out. When her cancer was at the point that she was terminal, I booked us two nights at the Awahanee, in the Queen’s room. We spent two days exploring the Valley.

Michele Stivers

For the first time, I was allowed to explore the valley alone on my bike. I spent hours pedaling the paths, listening to the Smiths on my Walkman, and enjoying the freedom that comes with flying down an open bike trail.

Melissa Husges

Yosemite was the first national park I ever visited. I remember driving about 4–6 hours through small-town highways and high-switchback roads through the mountains. Before I knew it, I’d made it into the front gates, and later, I couldn’t believe what I saw at the end of the tunnel I’d just gone through: Tunnel View.

Sang Nguyen

My late husband and I came to Yosemite many times. We promised each other that if possible, we wanted the survivor of us to scatter the other’s ashes in Yosemite. When he died in 2010, I contacted Yosemite to request that I be able to scatter his ashes in Wawona Meadows, a place we particularly enjoyed…

Sue Case

As a teacher at Tenaya Elementary School in Groveland California, (the closest school to Yosemite’s Highway 120 entrance) I’ve had the honor of taking many students on their first visit to Yosemite National Park.

Mr. Andrews

Lynn's grandmother on the Glacier Point rock in 1900

My family has been going to Yosemite since 1900 — my grandmother’s family went into the park in a covered wagon and camped when she was 19 years old. She crawled out onto the Glacier Point rock. On the back of the photograph, she wrote “Can’t go any farther scared”. In the 1940s my aunt

Lynn Hart Perata

In summer of 1994, a close friend of mine talked me into backpacking Yosemite. Before that, I had very little experience with the park, despite living just 4 hours away in the Bay Area. Little did I know this trip would change my life. My friends and I returned to backpack Yosemite just about every

Robert Zaccheo

Raj Patel, Tunnel View

Yosemite is the story and reason behind my immigration to America. On a chance trip to Los Angeles, I ended up meeting folks who encouraged me to join them on a trip to Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes…

Raj Patel

Close-up photo of Yosemite Conservancy naturalist and tour guide Dick Ewart holding a sign that reads "hike to Vernal Fall," with greenery visible behind him

Arriving in Yosemite Valley in my 1967 Saab (which I’m still driving) I was overwhelmed with the beauty and majesty of the park, but I had so many questions. How was the valley formed? How do those trees grow out of the bare rock? Where does the water come from that feeds those waterfalls?

Dick Ewart

It’s been two years since the greatest adventure of my life: solo thru-hiking the 211-mile John Muir Trail or JMT. The JMT begins at Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley and stretches all the way to Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous U.S. The day before I started, I arrived in the Valley to the thickest smoke I had ever seen…

Alison Chang

Amy George on her 18th birthday trip in Yosemite in the Clark Range

As part of UCSC’s wilderness orientation, we went from Glacier Point Road into the Clark Range. We spent time orienteering, reading topographic maps, and finding our way when there was no trail…

Amy George

Last year, 10/10/22, we got married in Yosemite Valley. We eloped with just our two photographers and drove into the Valley at the perfect time when the small amount of water still coming down a waterfall had a rainbow radiating…

Gabriel and Ashley Arcoleo

A wooden sign points toward Glacier Point, where Yosemite visitors will find incredible views of Half Dome, Yosemite Valley and the high country. Photo: Pixabay

In August 1958, I traveled to Yosemite with four friends to camp in a tent, hike, and see the sights. I was 17 at the time. We hiked up Glacier Point using the creek bed — we had little to no knowledge of how to hike safely. We made it to the top, and two of us took the marked trail back. I decided on a short cut, and got stuck on a ledge part way down…

Bill Beeghley

We were building the new Sentinel Bridge in Yosemite Valley in 1992. It was winter time, early morning just before dawn. I was working; it was really quiet. The sun was starting to peek into the valley. I heard some cracking on the Yosemite Falls…

Bill Wood

On this sunny day in 2019, a woman was passing us, as we stopped for a break. We exchanged pleasantries. I noticed she had two photos, each in separate circle frames on her backpack. One was of a young man in a military uniform…

Bobby French

In 1980 two friends and I took a cross country trip. One of our stops was Yosemite. We were mesmerized when we entered the park and saw Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and the sequoias among other sights. We were not able to camp in the park but we did set up camp just outside on the Merced River…

Cathy Allgood Murphy

It is hard to pick out my “Yosemite Story” from a lifetime of personal and professional experiences, but I think it is the moment all of it sank in for me. The moment I realized that my home was the most amazing home anyone could have, that the luck I had in being born into this community was something special. It wasn’t anything profound, yet from that moment, I knew this was where I wanted to be…

Chuck Carter

Wide angle shot of Yosemite Valley from Half Dome summit with clear blue sky above. Photo by Fred Turner.

Climbing Half Dome taught me that hard things are worth doing in life. We can all do hard things if we put our minds to it…

Dan Horning

It’s fair to say my story is somewhat the opposite of many who visit and support the park. Instead of legacy generational vacationing here as a child, I never was able to visit a national park until I became an adult, because my family never had the time or money to take vacations.

Don Faxon

Black Bear NPS/Caitlin Lee-Roney

Mr. Stoye had warned us to put all our food into the trunk of a car or into a “bear box” way up in a tree, since a bear could show up at any time at our campsite. Of course, being “know-it-all teenagers,” we really didn’t believe there were bears around. We just thought Mr. Stoye was trying to scare us. We spent the rest of the evening listening to ghost stories around the campfire…

Renee Rose Hendry

Back in 1985, my then-girlfriend (now wife) planned our first-ever trip together from the East Coast to Washington state, then a train to San Francisco. We were looking for something to do for a few more days. I suggested this park called Yosemite…

Jason Braun

She offered to have me back for a week, which turned into three fantastic summers working at Camp Curry then The Ahwahnee, and trying to hike every trail in the park, plus Half Dome at least once a month…

Jason Keyes

Close up shot of Half Dome with a line of climbers going straight up the middle of the formation on the rope guides.

We continued on up, the switchbacks and grade a challenge. Finally, we got to the subdome. I looked up and thought I might not be able to do it, but gradually, step by step, we made it up with Grant leading the way, the views spectacular…

Alan Buchwald

Yosemite set me free from the grind of my everyday life. It empowered me and sparked a lifelong love of open spaces and nature and conservancy. It changed me. When I met my future husband in 1996, he joined me on my frequent park visits to hang out with my sister and to drink in the beauty of the park.

Meredith Klassen

A side-view of Half Dome with Yosemite Valley in the background.

We met fellow hikers and shared our mosquito repellent and our hopeful itineraries and sent them on, obviously at a faster pace than ours. Then we tackled the tortuous series of switchbacks, covering a 1,000-foot elevation gain in a mile. It was described as being built by a contractor who was paid in tequila…

Anonymous

When I was a teenager in my country, the Dominican Republic, and a computer lover, I remember the arrival of the Windows 95 software. Within its wallpaper, there was a beautiful photo that said, “Yosemite.” I had never heard of that place. I contemplated it as a paradise on Earth, and I felt great emotion when I saw that photograph…

Anonymous

I picked the glider up, leaned forward, and in three steps, I was off! Three thousand feet above the valley floor. The air was so glassy smooth, I could fly my glider with one finger…

Richard (Marty) Collins

Read Roger’s poem ‘Yosemite Spring’…

Roger Funston

We walked outside — it was deserted — and looked up at the granite cliff face in front of us, and up and up until we saw the clearest blue sky imaginable topping it all off. We’d seen none of this coming into the valley, so it was a memorable surprise for us both, and something we shared many times over those many years.

Roger Potash

Three days before my 18th birthday, when my parents asked me how I would like to celebrate, I begged my dad to apply for the Half Dome cables permit lottery. He agreed, likely thinking it was a small chance we would win. Twenty-four hours later, we were packing up the car to head back into the Valley for, arguably, the most iconic hike in the world…

Anonymous

My family went to Yosemite when I was 12 and stayed in the now-gone Yosemite Lodge cabins with bath. This was the first time I fell in love with Yosemite, and I vowed to work there as soon as I was 18. Sure enough, I got a postcard in 1971, when I was 19, telling

Sharon Tscheekar Emes

Climbing Yosemite’s Half Dome cables as the sun rises is one of those memories that stays with me, and as June comes around, the experience draws me back

Tim Pham

My dad, Walt Sr., was a park ranger. We moved to the Valley in October 1951. He spent the next four summers as district ranger at Tuolumne Meadows. I attended sixth through eighth grades at Yosemite School. My sister, Anita, attended Mariposa High. In fall 1955, my dad was reassigned as district ranger at Wawona.

Walt Gammill, Jr