Glacier Point

Glacier Point stands on the south rim of Yosemite Valley at about 7,214 feet, roughly 3,200 feet straight above the floor of the valley near Curry Village. What makes it extraordinary is not height alone but alignment: from the railing the whole architecture of the upper valley opens at once. Half Dome rises directly across Tenaya Canyon, its sheared face turned toward you; to the right Liberty Cap stands above the paired steps of Vernal and Nevada Falls, and beyond them the granite swells toward Clouds Rest. Turn north and Yosemite Falls drops from the opposite wall, while the meadows and the thread of the Merced lie so far below that cars look like grains of rice.

The spot was used as a lookout long before any road reached it — the Native people of the valley knew the overhanging rock at the edge, though what they called the place is no longer clear. The Four Mile Trail climbed up from the valley in 1872, a stage road for horse-drawn vehicles followed in 1882, and in the early twentieth century the route was rebuilt for automobiles. From 1872 until 1968 the point was famous for the Firefall: on summer evenings burning embers were pushed over the edge, and a glowing ribbon poured down the wall to crowds watching from the valley below. The spectacle ended in 1968, and the cliff has since been left to its natural light shows — alpenglow on Half Dome at sunset is the one most people wait for.

Glacier Point is also a trailhead for some of the finest walking in the park. The Four Mile Trail (in fact about 4.6 miles) drops the full 3,200 feet to the valley floor in tight switchbacks, and the Panorama Trail runs about 8.2 miles along the rim and down past Illilouette Fall to Nevada Fall and the Mist Trail — a descent that keeps Half Dome in view almost the whole way. The Pohono Trail heads west along the rim toward other viewpoints above El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall.

Getting there

Glacier Point lies inside Yosemite National Park, about 96 km from the town of Madera by straight line. It is reached by Glacier Point Road, a paved road of about 16 miles that branches off Highway 41 at Chinquapin; in winter the point can only be reached on skis or snowshoes from the Badger Pass area. The nearest airport by distance is Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), about 65 km away across the Sierra crest, but that route depends on the seasonal Tioga Road. Most visitors fly into Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) and drive up Highway 41 — roughly 65 miles to the park's South Entrance — or come through Yosemite Valley. Hikers can also arrive on foot from the valley floor by the Four Mile Trail.