Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park is in California's Sierra Nevada, about a four hour drive from San Francisco. It is a glacier carved valley walled in granite: El Capitan and Half Dome, two of the most famous rock faces on earth, with waterfalls plunging thousands of feet off the cliffs, including Yosemite Falls, one of the world's tallest. Best season is late spring: the waterfalls run strongest in May and June on snowmelt.

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Why this one matters

Each February, Horsetail Fall on El Capitan can turn into the Firefall: for a few minutes at sunset, the light hits the water at just the right angle and it glows orange like lava pouring down the cliff, but only when the sky is clear and the water is flowing. The Half Dome day hike is a once in a lifetime undertaking: 14 to 16 miles and nearly 5,000 feet of climbing, ending with a cable pull up the bare granite face, and from the summit you look straight across the valley at El Capitan, the mecca for big wall rock climbers. Permits are limited and issued by lottery.

Yosemite National Park

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