Yosemite National Park: Bone-dry but still beautiful

Brett Kelman | USA TODAY

As the spring sun melted the final bits of snow, Barbara Ducey and her two sons huffed along the Panorama Trail, all of Yosemite beneath them. Normally, this trail wouldn't be open for weeks or months, but there they were, above the crowds and the cars, staring across the valley at the full height of Yosemite Falls.

It was simply too gorgeous to walk and look at the same time.

"We kept stopping every few feet because the view was always better and better," said Ducey, 61, who visited Yosemite in early April. "It was an area of Yosemite I'd never been to before. I wanted to do something different there, and this was it."

Yosemite National Park, about 1,200 square miles along the Sierra Nevada Mountains in central California, is one of the oldest, most popular and most indescribably majestic of all national parks. It's the kind of place where immense granite cliffs can make even the most powerful businessman feel small, where even the most apathetic teenager can be persuaded to put down his iPhone to gape at a towering waterfall.

Because of its great beauty, approximately 4 millions of visitors come to Yosemite each year, mostly in the summer months. The park fills with hikers, rafters, climbers and skiers. Many cram the park into a single day trip, weaving through busy roads to visit the main attractions — Half Dome, ElCapitan and the waterfalls. Others spend a few nights in the park, either roughing it in camp sites or sleeping in one of several in-park hotels.

However, regardless of why you are going to Yosemite, the park will be different this year. California's epic drought has accelerated the park's normal rhythm, shifting when — and why — travelers might want to visit.

For example, due to dismal snowfall, many of the park's back-country trails, like Panorama, opened months earlier than normal. The park's rafting season has began several months early, but could end as early as June, about the time it normally begins. Mosquitoes should be less relentless this summer. Wildflowers will not bloom as long.

Finally, Yosemite Falls, a 2,400-foot waterfall series that serves as one of the park's main attractions, will almost certainly run dry in record time. Normally, the falls flow until mid-August, but this year they could be dry by June. Another popular spot, Bridalveil Fall, which normally flows year-round, may also run dry, park rangers said.

But even when the falls run dry, Yosemite will still be stunning, veteran park ranger Scott Gediman said.

Gediman has worked in the Park Service for 19 years, but sometimes Yosemite still leaves him stunned, he said.

"There is one particular spot near where we work called Cooks Meadow," Gediman said. "From there, you can look at Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, North Dome and Sentinel Rock. You are surrounded by 3,000-foot granite walls. The scale is something you have to experience personally. Photographs don't do it justice."

It is this beauty that attracts most visitors, Gediman said, but what is less visible is Yosemite's historical significance.

The park will celebrate its 125th anniversary on Oct. 1, hosting a large public ceremony in Yosemite Valley. Last year, the park celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Grant Act, which set aside swaths of land for preservation, years before the park National Park Service even existed.

"What we are trying to convey with these anniversaries is that this is the birthplace of the national park idea," Gediman said. "Places like Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon represent not only a great place for a visit, but this American idea of preservation."

Few know the beauty of the park like Steve Bumgardner, a freelance filmmaker who has been shooting pictures and video in Yosemite for 10 years. Working under the nickname of "Yosemite Steve," Bumgardner has probed every inch of the park, capturing the most magnificent sights.

Although Bumgardner snaps most of his photos in the remote corners of Yosemite, he also praised the beauty of the park's beaten path. Some of the park's most spectacular sites are right by the roadside, accessible to everyone.

"You can be moved to tears by the view from your driver's seat," Bumgardner said. "It's unparalleled on the planet. There is nothing like it. It could be three national parks. … It never gets old."

The same is true for Becky Archibald, a Vancouver, British Columbia, resident who has taken a springtime trip to Yosemite every year of the last decade.

Archibald's parents, Native Americans from different tribes, met at the park's Ahwahnee Hotel in the late 1940s, and Archibald spent her childhood years living close to the park. She went back to the park, and the hotel, in April.

"It's such a great place of peace and serenity. A natural cathedral-like setting," Archibald said. "My father always called it God's country. It's a place unlike any other. When I was a girl, I thought the whole world was that beautiful."

Kelman also reports for The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun.

About the park

Size: 761,268 acres

Visitors: 4,029,416 in 2014

Established: 1890

History: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act in 1864, eight years before Yellowstone became the first national park. As a result, many preservationists credit Yosemite as the birthplace of the national park idea.

When visiting: The Yosemite Valley Visitor Center is on Northside Drive in Yosemite Village. The entrance fee, good for seven days, is $20 per vehicle or $10 for an individual. Visitor info: 209-372-0200.

Of note: The park's largest collection of giant sequoia trees, the Mariposa Grove, will close in June for the launch of a major restoration project that will last through 2016.