California
The Best of Yosemite National Park: An American Icon
Program No. 19237RJ
Discover the wonders of Yosemite National Park alongside naturalists as you learn about and explore Yosemite Valley, Tuolumne Meadows, Mariposa Grove and many other iconic treasures.
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Protecting the Environment
We offset a portion of the emissions created by your travel. Learn more
6 days
5 nights
12 meals
5B 4L 3D
1
Check-in, Registration, Welcome Dinner, Orientation
Brisbane (San Francisco Airport), CA
2
Yosemite National Park, Ahwahnee Hotel
Yosemite, CA
3
Mariposa Grove
Yosemite, CA
4
Glacier Point, Free Time
Yosemite, CA
5
Olmsted Point, Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Meadows
Yosemite, CA
6
Transfer to Brisbane, Program Concludes
Brisbane (San Francisco Airport), CA
At a Glance
On an unforgettable adventure in Yosemite National Park, learn on-site about monumental natural wonders like Yosemite Falls, Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite Valley. Expert naturalists address the geologic saga of the park as well as its interwoven natural and human histories. As Half Dome and El Capitan loom overhead, explore the Native American history of the Ahwahneechee, and learn the intricacies of rock climbing, a popular park activity. Stay at lodgings inside the park on this fantastic adventure!
Activity Level
Keep the Pace
Walking up to 1.5 miles over varied terrain including paved and dirt paths. Standing up to 45 minutes at a time. Elevations range from 4,000-8,000 feet.
Best of all, you’ll…
- Experience the impressive granite formations of Half Dome and El Capitan, a favorite for rock climbers.
- Discover Yosemite’s cultural and natural history with a local naturalist on trails in Yosemite Valley and Wawona.
- Explore Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to stand in awe of hundreds of these impressive trees, and explore the Ahwahnee Hotel with a local expert.
General Notes
Select dates are designated for small groups and are limited to 24 participants or less. If not specified as a small group date, departures will have up to 35 participants.
Featured Expert
All trip experts
Jackie Mlekoday
Jackie Mlekoday grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and later lived and worked in downtown Minneapolis. After taking several trips to San Diego and falling in love with the city, she and her husband moved there in 2000. They currently live in Mission Valley. Jackie has been a nurse for more than three decades with leadership positions in emergency and critical care. She currently volunteers as a member of the Rose Corp in Balboa Park. Her interests include hiking, golfing, and travel.
Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.
Jackie Mlekoday
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Jackie Mlekoday grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and later lived and worked in downtown Minneapolis. After taking several trips to San Diego and falling in love with the city, she and her husband moved there in 2000. They currently live in Mission Valley. Jackie has been a nurse for more than three decades with leadership positions in emergency and critical care. She currently volunteers as a member of the Rose Corp in Balboa Park. Her interests include hiking, golfing, and travel.
Mary Jackson
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Mary Jackson recently retired from teaching English at a Northern California high school. During a 34-year career, she taught honors English and multicultural literature, chaired the English department, and served as a mentor teacher. During the summers, Mary and her husband, Drew, took high school students on international trips that took them throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. Over 60 Road Scholar programs later, they stay busy with both intergenerational and adult programs in Northern California, from hiking Yosemite to exploring the coastal village of Mendocino.
Dawn Spare
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Dawn Spare is an avid traveler with a deep love of nature, history, and culture who enjoys both the city and country life. She earned her BFA magna cum laude from the University of California, Irvine, and attended graduate school at Temple and the University of Wisconsin. She lives on California’s Central Coast underneath pine trees at the beach, where she walks in nature daily. She belongs to a book club and has sung for over 20 years with the award-winning Vocal Arts Ensemble.
Barrie Simpson
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After a long career in the technology, pharmaceutical, and hospitality industries, Barrie Simpson became a Road Scholar group leader. She was raised in New England; following high school, she made her way to Oregon, where she planted trees all over the West before going on to earn a degree in environmental engineering. Currently living in San Francisco, she is a historical group leader for SF City Guides, a waterbird docent on Alcatraz, and a long time member leader of the American Society of Quality (ASQ).
Suggested Reading List
(8 books)
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
The Best of Yosemite National Park: An American Icon
Program Number: 19237
Yosemite: The Complete Guide
Filled with vivid color photography and informed writing, Yosemite: The Complete Guide puts the best of Yosemite National Park at your fingertips. Fully updated to include current travel info (including the new rules for hiking Half Dome), the second edition offers expanded chapters on geology, ecology, wildlife, and history. James Kaiser takes readers on a joyous romp through Yosemite, revealing the fascinating story behind the scenery. From the thundering waterfalls of Yosemite Valley to the sparkling granite of the High Sierra, Yosemite: The Complete Guide equips travelers with everything they need to know. Lodging, camping, and dining are covered in-depth, as well as outdoor adventures (hiking, biking, rock climbing, rafting, skiing), transportation issues, and seasonal weather patterns. Over 20 hikes are listed, with trail descriptions, topographical maps, and photos.
Sierra Nevada Natural History
First published forty years ago, this handbook has become an enduring natural history classic, used by thousands to learn more about virtually every aspect of this spectacular mountain range--from its superb flora and fauna to its rugged topography. Comprehensive yet concise and portable, the book describes hundreds of species: trees and shrubs, flowering plants and ferns, fungi and lichens, insects and fish, amphibians and reptiles, and birds and mammals.
My First Summer in the Sierra
In the summer of 1869, John Muir made his first long trip to Yosemite. When a friend offered him the chance to accompany his flock of sheep and a shepherd to the high pastures of the Sierra, it was an opportunity Muir could not resist. This book reprints the journal he kept of those summer days, of the wildlife and plant life, and of his explorations into the magical places of the mountains.
History of the Sierra Nevada
The History of the Sierra Nevada covers all aspects of the human history of the area from the prehistoric native Americans, Spanish exploration, mountain men, pioneers, 49'ers, railroad, John Muir and the national parks to recent trends of utilization and recreation.
Geology of the Sierra Nevada (California Natural History Guides)
Geology of the Sierra Nevada (California Natural History Guides) is a comprehensive guide to the geologic history of the Sierra Nevada.
Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park
Many of the features that visitors find most tantalizing about Yosemite have unique and compelling geologic stories—tales that continue to unfold today in vivid, often destructive ways. While visiting more than twenty-seven amazing sites, you’ll discover why many of Yosemite’s domes shed rock shells like onion layers, what happens when a volcano erupts under a glacial lake, and why rocks seem to be almost continually tumbling from the region’s cliffs. With a multitude of colorful photos and illustrations, and prose tooled for the lay reader, Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park will help you read the landscape the way a geologist does.
Ansel Adams' Yosemite: The Special Edition Prints
The photographs of Ansel Adams are among America's finest artistic treasures, and form the basis of his tremendous legacy of environmental activism. In the late 1950s, Adams selected eight photographs of Yosemite National Park to offer exclusively to park visitors as affordable souvenirs. He hoped that these images might inspire tourists to become activists by transmitting to them the same awe and respect for nature that Yosemite had instilled in him. Over the following decades, Adams added to this collection to create a stunning view of Yosemite in all its majesty. These photographs, the Yosemite Special Edition Prints, form the core of this essential volume. Adams' luminous images of Yosemite's unique rock formations, waterfalls, meadows, trees, and nature details are among the most distinctive of his career. Today, with America's public lands increasingly under threat, his creative vision remains as relevant and convincing as ever.
Introduced by bestselling photographer Pete Souza, with an essay by Adams' darkroom assistant Alan Ross, Ansel Adams' Yosemite is a powerful continuation of Adams' artistic and environmental legacies, and a compelling statement during a precarious time for the American earth.
The Yosemite Grant 1864-1906: A Pictorial History
A comprehensive, well-illustrated history of the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees.