The most famous, and the oldest, national park in the world, Yosemite National Park in north California is 1,200 square miles of some of nature’s most beautiful creations, from deep valleys, wildflower-covered meadows, and 3,000-year-old giant sequoias to the vast High Sierra Mountains wilderness and thundering waterfalls that dry up in August, and so much more.

Start your exploration in the valley, a one-mile-wide and seven-mile-long canyon created by a river and shaped by glaciers.

It is surrounded by enormous walls of towering domes and pinnacles, with El Capitan, the world’s largest exposed granite monolith, towering above the valley.

From here, you can take one of the many marked trails that offer 800 miles of hiking through the park, from easy walks through forests to week-long endurance tests up the High Sierras. Watch a short video clip.

Along the way, you can spot the chipmunks, mule deer, brush rabbits, marmots, and warblers. Take a walk through towering red fir and pine forests, flowering dogwood and dwarf willows, enormous ancient sequoias, pass spectacular waterfalls and cool brooks.

And once you leave the valley, you will not have to worry about the four million people that come to the park each year, you can be as alone as you wish, just you and nature.

Watch this awesome video about Yosemite.

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