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Articles
- My favorite day hike in Yosemite: Four Mile up, Panorama down — The 13-mile loop up the Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point and down the Panorama Trail past Illilouette and Nevada Falls. The most complete day hike in the park.
- Your last-minute Yosemite trip with kids: a naturalist's honest guide — A senior naturalist's honest guide to visiting with kids in 2026, no advance reservations needed. Kid-friendly hikes, timing, YARTS, and what most families get wrong.
- Tioga Road opens May 15: a plan for opening weekend — Highway 120 opens Friday, well ahead of the long-term average. What's open in Tuolumne Meadows, conditions, hikes, and stops.
- So you want to hike Half Dome — The honest case for the cables, and the better hike most visitors don't know about: Clouds Rest, a thousand feet higher and no permit required.
- How the Half Dome permit lottery actually works — There are two lotteries, not one. The preseason in March and the daily lottery every day the cables are up. Real odds and a strategy that works.
- Glacier Point Road is open: a plan for the early season — Seventeen miles to a 7,200-foot viewpoint at eye level with Half Dome. What's open at the top and how to plan the first weeks.
- The Mist Trail: everything the internet isn't telling you — The most hiked trail in any national park, demystified. Shoes, water, safety, and when to go.
- So you want to work in Yosemite — Most jobs in Yosemite aren't ranger jobs. The honest version of what it's like to live here.
- How water ouzels live inside a waterfall — A robin-sized bird walks directly into Yosemite Falls and stays there.
- Why a Yosemite bear in April is more dangerous than one in August — Spring, not summer, is the dangerous season for bears.
- Yosemite's disappearing glaciers, and what they record — A 1933 cairn at Mount Lyell Glacier is now four hundred feet from the ice.
- Why giant sequoias thrive where other trees burn — Two-foot bark, embedded tannins, and seedling ecology that fails without fire.
- Hetch Hetchy: the Yosemite Valley you didn't know you skipped — Same elevation, same granite, mostly empty.
- Yosemite stargazing: where to look up, and when — Olmsted Point on a moonless August night.
- Yosemite for non-hikers: the park you can experience without a trail
- How to pack your car for a Yosemite trip — The car is the base camp for most trips.
- Yosemite gateway towns compared: Mariposa, Oakhurst, Groveland, El Portal, Lee Vining
- Yosemite during smoke season: how to actually plan around it
- Yosemite without reservations in 2026: a real strategy for the year the cap came off
- If it's your first time in Yosemite, read this before you book anything
- Your last-minute Yosemite trip with kids: a naturalist's honest guide
- One day or two in Yosemite: a minimalist itinerary
- Where to eat in and around Yosemite
About
The Talus Field is an independent publication operated by Cory Goehring,
based in Yosemite National Park, California. Contact:
cory@thetalusfieldjournal.com.