If you’ve ever stumbled out of Yosemite National Park or come off Bass Lake with a roaring appetite, you probably already know that Oakhurst offers up some solid Mexican food options. While Plazuelas is our personal favorite, it’s a bit on the pricier side and may not be right for every occasion. So we sifted…
If you’ve always wanted to hike to the top of Half Dome but can’t quite get comfortable with the 16-mile trek, take a shot at Fresno Dome instead! You don’t need to win a permit lottery, bang your head against Yosemite Valley traffic, or hang on to metal cables like your life depends on it….
Tucked into the pine-covered foothills of the Sierra National Forest at 3,400 feet, Bass Lake sits 11 miles from our Sugar Pine cabin. It’s just a short detour off Highway 41 between Oakhurst and Yosemite’s South Entrance. I send guests here all summer as it’s the only local option for warm-water recreation. Alpine lakes like…
Planning a trip to Yosemite National Park is a must-do for many families across the country and around the world. Visions of towering granite walls, ancient sequoias, and gushing waterfalls have enticed travelers for over a century. Gone are the days of roughing it with pack mules and making camp wherever you like. Today’s visitors…
For generations, walking through the massive stone-and-timber archway of The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite was treated as an ultimate American travel rite of passage. Opened in 1927 and designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood as a masterwork of National Park Service rustic architecture, it stands as a sprawling sanctuary of textured concrete, soaring log-beamed ceilings,…
Like many lakes in California, Bass Lake was born from an ancient meadow. Before the dam at the south end of today’s lake was constructed, the entire basin was known as Crane Valley. It was ringed by pine forest, drained by Willow Creek, grazed by cattle and logged for timber. The lake we all know…
Even longtime visitors to Yosemite are surprised to learn that some fantastic waterfalls can be found outside the park, in the Sierra National Forest. Lewis Creek is fed by the Merced River system and flows out of the mountains through Sugar Pine, a historic community of cozy cabins. Along the way, the creek drops over…
Highway 41 is a big reason that Boom Chalet works so well as a homebase for exploring Yosemite. Nine miles of beautifully banked and striped two-lane road connect Sugar Pine to Yosemite’s South Entrance, providing further access to three of the national park’s best regions: Wawona and the Mariposa Grove, Glacier Point, and Yosemite Valley….
Yosemite’s South Entrance corridor isn’t exactly known as a golf destination, and we’re not going to pretend it competes with Palm Springs or the Monterey Peninsula. But it does feature three uniquely playable nine-hole courses, all located within about a half hour of Oakhurst. Each course sports a genuinely different personality. River Creek is a…
Planning a trip to Yosemite National Park often involves a sudden, overwhelming realization: The park is massive and it’s not at all obvious where to stay. Do we want to camp? Do we need a kitchen? These hotels are kind of expensive… Spanning nearly 1,200 square miles of rugged Sierra Nevada terrain, Yosemite rewards those…