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More than 100 million visitors have come seeking what John Muir wrote about:
Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be- still kind. Your animal fellow-beings, so seldom regarded in civilization, and every rock-brow and mountain, stream, and lake, and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers; even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds. This one noble park is big enough and rich enough for a whole life of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody, no matter how benumbed with care, encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.
Yosemite Valley is located in the central part of the Sierra Nevada, on the western slope. It stretches for only 7 miles (11 km) in a roughly east-west direction, and is about 1 mile (1.5 km) wide. More than a half dozen creeks tumble from hanging valleys at the top of granite cliffs that can rise 3000-4000 feet (900-1200 m) above the valley floor, which is at 4000 ft (1200 m) above sea level. These streams combine into the Merced River, which flows out from the western edge of the valley, down the rest of its canyon to the San Joaquin Valley. The flat floor of the valley holds both forest and large open meadows, which provide breathtaking views of the surrounding crests and waterfalls.
Below is a short verbal tour of these features, looking first at the walls above moving east to west as a visitor does when entering the valley, then visiting the waterfalls and other water features, returning west to east with the flow of water.
The first open view from the lower (eastern) end of the Valley is great granite monolith El Capitan on the left and Cathedral Rocks on the right with Bridalveil Fall. Just past this spot the valley suddenly widens with the Cathedral Spires then the pointed obelisk of Sentinel Rock. Across the Valley on the northern side are the Three Brothers, rising one above the other like gables built on the same angle -- the highest crest is Eagle Peak, with the two below known as the Middle and Lower Brothers.
To this point, the Valley has been curving gently to the left, to the north. Now a grand curve back to the right begins, with Yosemite Falls on the north, followed by the Royal Arches, topped by North Dome. Opposite to the South is Glacier Point, 3,200 feet (975 m) above the Valley floor. At this point the Valley splits into two, one section slanting northeast, with the other curving from south to southeast. Between them both, at the western end of the valley, is Half Dome, the most famous and most recognizable crest in the Sierra Nevada. Above and to the northeast of Half Dome is Cloud's Rest; at 9926 feet (3025 m), the highest point around Yosemite Valley.
Snow melting in the Sierra forms creeks and lakes. In the surrounding region, these creeks flow to the edge of the Valley to form cataracts and waterfalls.
A fan of creeks and forks of the Merced River take drainage from the Sierra crest and combine at Merced Lake. The Merced then flows down to the end of its canyon ( Little Yosemite Valley ), where it begins what is often called the Giant Staircase. The first drop is Nevada Fall, which drops 594 feet (181 m), bouncing off the granite slope below it. Below is Vernal Fall, 317 feet (97 m) high, one of the most picturesque waterfalls in the Valley. The Merced then decends down rapids to meet Illouette Creek, which dropped from the valley rim to form Illouette Falls. They combine at the base of the gorges that contain each stream, and then flow around the Happy Isles to meet Tenaya Creek at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley proper.
Tenaya Creek flows southwest from Tenaya Lake and down Tenaya Canyon, finally flowing between Half Dome and North Dome before joining the Merced River. The following falls tumble from the Valley rim to join it at various points:
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