The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: October third, enjoying Yosemite off-season and off-trail.

Most of the four and a half million visitors Yosemite National Park receives each year come from June through September. They gather in great numbers amid the scenic splendors of the seven-mile-long Yosemite Valley set in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. They marvel at the granite faces of El Capitan and Half Dome and crane their necks to catch a clutch of North America's highest waterfalls.

Yet ironically those crowded months are also when the heat's most intense and the falls often fade to nothing. The valley's big name attractions are concentrated in only six percent of Yosemite's nearly 750,000 acres. Most of the park is well removed from asphalt, and few visitors venture more than a mile from a paved road. With all those acres and over 800 miles of backcountry trails, peaceful solitude can be abundant, even in the height of summer.

And the park is magnificent in the other seasons as well. This time of year, the slanted sunshine turns granite into gold and Sierra meadows bristle burgundy and bronze. Or in winter, when deep drifts block high passes and transform groves of Giant Sequoia into cross-country playgrounds. When spring's melt mad streams roar over 2000-foot-high precipices, waterfalls blossom everywhere.

There's no best time to visit a place like Yosemite. Although some services are seasonal, the essentials are always available, and awesome beauty is abundant the year around.

FMI For Yosemite Information, 209-372-0200 or www.nps.gov/yose. For lodging reservations 559-252-8345.

For camping reservations 800-436-7275

Back to October 2003 Main

Look through the list of fascinating places and off-beat features we’ve covered. Search text versions of past episodes and articles in our archives.