Yosemite National Park in a Wheelchair

One of my most memorable moments from Yosemite wasn’t a hike, a waterfall or one of the famous viewpoints. It was sitting at the bottom of El Capitan with an experienced climber and his 90-year-old dad, listening to their stories while we all stared up at this ridiculous wall of granite.

The son was an ex-Marine who had decided to leave military life behind and build a quieter life in the mountains around something he genuinely loved — climbing. His dad was a World War II veteran and an ex-climber himself. They had come to Yosemite for his 90th birthday so they could sit there together and watch people make their way up El Capitan.

They had binoculars and knew the climbing routes from experience, so I felt blessed that he started pointing out exactly where people were on the wall. With the naked eye, I couldn’t see anyone. Then I looked through the binoculars and then suddenly I could see there were tiny people halfway up the rock face. That was the moment the scale of Yosemite really clicked for me.

I love those random conversations you get when travelling. I had gone to Yosemite to see a national park and ended up sitting with two strangers talking about climbing, war, changing direction in life and doing more of the things that make you happy. Looking up at El Capitan made the world feel enormous and all of us feel pretty small. For me, that’s not a bad reminder every now and then.

Real trip, real photos. Everything here was captured by me or somebody I was travelling with, and I do not materially alter the scene. How I capture my trips →

Why Yosemite was worth the trip

Yosemite National Park is one of those places where the photos don’t really prepare you for the scale. The waterfalls are enormous, the granite cliffs seem to go straight up forever and there are climbers hanging off El Capitan who are so small you can barely see them.

This trip was never really about spending time in cities. Apart from a few days in San Francisco and Los Angeles, I wanted to get away from buildings and traffic and appreciate Mother Nature instead. I’d already been through Hawaii and Lake Tahoe before reaching Yosemite, but I think Yosemite shows Mother Nature on another level. Mountains, waterfalls, forests and enormous granite cliffs — there was no shortage of reminders that for me, the most impressive places are the ones where Mother Nature has done all the work. It’s up to us to protect it so future generations can enjoy it as well.

I was there in May 2023 after a long winter with a lot of snow. We learned this when we got to Lake Tahoe and after reading about this trip to Yosemite, it’s definitely worth reading next. The snowmelt meant the waterfalls were absolutely pumping, which was brilliant for the scenery, but it also meant there was water everywhere. Parts of Yosemite Valley were flooding, some of the wooden paths and footbridges were under water, and a few of the routes I had expected to use weren’t available.

That changed the way I got around. We couldn’t do the Cook’s Meadow Loop during my visit, so I either had to take a longer route around the outer valley paths (much longer than it seems) or jump on one of the shuttle buses. It made some days slower and more physical than they would normally be, but the upside was seeing Yosemite Falls and Bridalveil Fall with a huge amount of water coming over them. That was worth it for me.

One of my favourite videos from the whole Yosemite trip was taken from the other side of the valley looking across at Yosemite Falls. A still photo shows the view, but the video does a much better job of showing just how much water was coming down and how huge the whole valley feels around it.

I also happened to be there on a weekend. It wasn’t one of the really big holiday weekends, and I was apparently lucky with the timing, but it was still seriously busy. Yosemite is not the place to have a lazy morning, do the washing and then wander into the valley at lunchtime expecting an easy car park. We tried that once and we learned this lesson the hard way. Fortunately you don’t have to.

What I could actually do in Yosemite in a wheelchair

I knew before I arrived that I wasn’t going to be climbing Half Dome or knocking over Yosemite’s big hiking trails. Bre could head off and do some of the harder stuff, but my aim was to work out how much of Yosemite I could actually experience in my wheelchair. By the end of the four days, I felt like I had seen a lot. More importantly, I’d seen everything possible.

The important thing for me was not treating the trip as all-or-nothing. Yosemite has famous hikes that I couldn’t do, but it also has huge views, waterfalls, lakes, giant sequoias and valley routes that I could reach. The following are the places I personally tried, so this is my experience rather than a guarantee that the exact same route will work for every wheelchair user.

Mirror Lake wheelchair access — what the trail was like for me

Mirror Lake was definitely worth doing. It gives you a great view towards Half Dome, which was one of the Yosemite landmarks I really wanted to see properly.

The information I had put the return trip from the shuttle stop at roughly 3.2 km. I couldn’t do the full loop around Mirror Lake, but I could get out to the main lake area and back. I’ve since seen the route described online as paved, but that doesn’t match what I remember (and what my photos show me) from May 2023. The section I used was a hard-packed dirt trail. It wasn’t perfectly smooth, but it was firm enough for me to manage with the front wheel on my chair. Some parts were a challenge, but it was possible nonetheless.

This is exactly the sort of section where I think photos and videos are more useful than simply saying something is “accessible”. I want to show the actual surface, the width of the route and what it looked like when I was there, because when using a photo or a video, another wheelchair user will be able to make a much better judgement of whether they will be able to do it themselves.

Lower Yosemite Fall — The easiest and easily the most accessible trail I did

Lower Yosemite Fall was one of the easiest wins here in Yosemite. The route I used was bitumen all the way to the viewpoint, so compared with some of the dirt and gravel surfaces elsewhere it was very straightforward in my chair.

You only see the lower section of Yosemite Falls from the viewpoint, but that didn’t bother me. With the amount of snowmelt when I was there, there was a ridiculous amount of water coming down and it was still a great waterfall experience in the park. Plus, on the way to the viewpoint, you get a great view of both the upper and lower waterfall. This one is a must do for everybody that visits Yosemite, but as a result, expect it to be crowded.

Bridalveil Fall — an easy first Yosemite stop

Bridalveil Fall was our first proper stop inside Yosemite and it set the bar pretty high. I could get to the lookout without any major drama and as you’ll see in the video below, we could get pretty close and really feel the spray coming off the falls.

A lovely couple lent Bre and I some ponchos so we could go closer without getting completely soaked. Given how much water was coming over at the time, that was a very useful act of generosity. In the video you can see I was already getting pretty excited about what was ahead. I don’t remember exactly why I said “guess what’s coming”, but if this was the first thing we were seeing, I think it was clear that the rest of the park was going to be pretty special.

Tunnel View — the classic Yosemite Valley viewpoint

Tunnel View is popular for a reason. It gives you the classic view down Yosemite Valley and is one of those places where the photo actually does a reasonable job of explaining why everyone stops there.

We stopped there on the way back from Mariposa Grove. If you’re driving back towards Yosemite Valley, the viewpoint appears immediately after you come out of the tunnel, so I’d have it loaded in Maps before you get there rather than trying to work it out at the last second.

El Capitan — the place I would tell everyone to slow down

El Capitan isn’t something you need to “do” in the usual sense. Unless you’re one of the crazy people that has the ability to climb it, that is. For me, the best part was simply sitting there and looking at it. Give yourself time rather than jumping out, taking one photo and moving on.

If you can, bring binoculars. The climbers are so tiny against the rock that I couldn’t see them until the climber I met started giving me reference points and handed over his binoculars. Once you can actually see people on the wall, you understand how big it is.

Mariposa Grove — worth the detour

Mariposa Grove ended up being an unexpected side adventure after we arrived too late to find a park in Yosemite Valley. The seasonal shuttle still wasn’t running, so if I wanted to get beyond the welcome plaza I had to push myself uphill. It was hard work, I stubbornly refused plenty of offers of help, and the run back down made me very glad I travel with gloves.

I’m keeping this section short because the giant sequoias, the uphill push and what the route was actually like deserve their own page rather than being buried inside the Yosemite article.

My Mariposa Grove story is coming soon.

Yosemite wheelchair accessibility: my reality check

Getting around Yosemite Valley

A front-wheel attachment was one of the most useful bits of equipment I had with me. Yes, it adds some weight, but for me the trade-off was worth it. It let me move faster on the better paths and made hard-packed dirt, gravel and some rougher surfaces much less annoying than they would have been on small front castors.

Once I had a car park, I wanted to keep it. The free Yosemite Valley shuttle buses were a much better way to move between the main stops than constantly returning to the car and gambling on finding another space.

Paths, boardwalks and trail surfaces

Around the main Yosemite Valley ring-road areas, a lot of what I used was flat or only gently sloping. There were paved sections, hard-packed dirt and wooden pathways. The problem during my particular visit was that some of those wooden routes were closed or sitting under water because of the snowmelt.

As soon as you start trying to get higher or move onto proper hiking trails, things can change quickly. I saw steeper grades, rocks and steps in different areas. Looking back now, I don’t want to pretend I can remember the exact condition of every metre of every route, which is another reason I want this site to use plenty of photos. The pictures are the best record I have of what the terrain actually looked like when I was there.

Parking, accessible toilets and the shuttle buses

Parking was the biggest everyday annoyance. Yosemite was busy enough that once we had a park, I really didn’t want to give it up. My advice after making the late-start mistake is to arrive early, park once and then use the shuttle system.

I found toilets around the main visitor areas, and as is common in the USA there was generally a larger accessible stall that gave me enough space for the chair. I’m only describing the facilities I personally came across, and layouts can obviously change.

What caught me out

There wasn’t one dramatic accessibility problem that ruined the trip. The bigger issue was how several smaller things stacked up: crowds, parking, longer detours because of flooding and the extra physical work of pushing further than planned.

The other surprise was the cost of food and supplies around the valley. It’s Yosemite, so I probably shouldn’t have been shocked, but next time I would arrive with a much better-stocked car.

What the guidebook might not tell you

Keep an eye out for bears. We saw a mother bear with two cubs while we were there. Because of all the water, we couldn’t get particularly close — which was fine because I had no intention of getting too close to a mother bear anyway. I only had an iPhone 13 Pro at the time, so the photos were ordinary, but seeing them was still one of those little moments I remember from the trip.

The other thing is scale. It’s difficult for your eyes to understand just how big Yosemite’s granite walls are from the ground. Binoculars genuinely added to the experience for me because they turned tiny specks on El Capitan into actual climbers.

And I’ll repeat the parking advice because it deserves repeating: once you’ve got a decent car park in Yosemite Valley, keep it. Use the buses.

If I could only do three things in Yosemite

1. Sit and take in El Capitan

Don’t just stop for the photo. Give it some time, look for the climbers and talk to people. This ended up being my favourite Yosemite memory.

2. Visit Lower Yosemite Fall

It was one of the easiest wheelchair routes I did and still gave me a proper Yosemite waterfall experience.

3. Stop at Tunnel View

Yes, everyone goes there. Go anyway. The view is worth sharing with the crowd.

What I ate in Yosemite

I’m not going to pretend this trip was some sort of food tour. Most days we were far more interested in squeezing as much as possible out of Yosemite than planning where to eat. But food is still part of the memory of a trip, especially after a day where you’ve pushed a long way around the valley and you’re completely cooked.

We had tacos one day, which did exactly what they needed to do, but the meal I remember most was pizza and a beer at Curry Village Pizza Deck. Bre and I had covered a huge amount of distance that day and by the time we stopped we were drained. It became one of those simple travel rewards: sit down, stop moving, order a pizza, have a beer and feel very pleased with what you managed to fit into the day.

It was expensive — Yosemite is not where I’d go looking for bargain food — but at that particular moment the pizza tasted absolutely delicious. I think the combination of hunger, fatigue and being able to look back on a massive day of exploring probably helped. That’s also why, if I went again, I’d bring more snacks and basic food in from a big supermarket before getting anywhere near the park. I’d still happily buy the pizza again after a big day though.

Where I stayed: Yosemite View Lodge accessible room

We stayed at Yosemite View Lodge in a Queen Handicap Room for four nights, Thursday through Sunday. The total was US$1,232.50, so this definitely wasn’t the budget part of the Hawaii & California 2023 trip.

For me, though, this was one of those times when paying more was worth it. The lodge is close to the park entrance, which made the daily drive much easier, and the room itself had enough space for me to move around properly. More importantly, the toilet and shower setup worked for me, which is the bit that can make or break an accommodation choice.

I’ll eventually do more detailed accommodation write-ups where they’re useful. For Yosemite View Lodge, the short version is that the price hurt, but I was happy with the decision because of the location and the accessible room.

How Yosemite fit into Hawaii & California 2023

Yosemite was one stop in a much bigger trip through Hawaii and California. The broader trip included places such as Hawaii, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Santa Cruz and other stops down the California coast. I’m keeping the detailed stories on their own pages because each place had completely different access, accommodation and experiences.

The eventual Hawaii & California 2023 trip page will be the simple overview: the route, the places I stopped, and links through to each location story. That way this Yosemite page can stay focused on Yosemite rather than turning into one enormous trip diary.

We came to Yosemite after Lake Tahoe, and on the way down we stopped at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. That will get its own short page later because it was another worthwhile nature stop rather than something I want to cram into the Yosemite story.

If I did Yosemite again

• Buy food before arriving. I’d stock up properly at a Walmart or large supermarket before getting anywhere near Yosemite. Food and snacks around the valley can be expensive for what you get.
• Bring electrolyte sachets. Whether you’re walking all day or pushing a wheelchair, you end up doing more physical work than you realise. I’d have Gatorade sachets or something similar in the bag.
• Start early every day. This is the big one. Yosemite parking gets painful quickly, especially on weekends.
• Keep the front wheel and gloves. The front wheel made rougher surfaces easier and the gloves mattered whenever there was a decent downhill section.
• Check current park conditions before leaving the accommodation. My May 2023 trip was heavily affected by snowmelt and flooding. Conditions in Yosemite can change what is realistically possible on a particular day.

Is Yosemite worth visiting in a wheelchair?

Based on my trip, yes. Definitely.

I couldn’t get up Half Dome and I couldn’t do the more strenuous hikes Bre did, but that didn’t make Yosemite a waste of time. I still got to Mirror Lake, Lower Yosemite Fall, Bridalveil Fall, Tunnel View, El Capitan, Mariposa Grove and plenty of Yosemite Valley. I saw bears, watched climbers on El Capitan and spent four days in one of the most spectacular landscapes I’ve ever visited.

The useful question for me isn’t “is Yosemite wheelchair accessible?” as though the whole national park can have one yes-or-no answer. It’s “what parts could I actually access with my chair, my equipment and the conditions when I was there?” That’s what I want these pages to show.

My verdict

Yosemite is one of the most physically impressive places I’ve ever seen, and I was very happy to tick it off the list.

There were things I couldn’t do, there were paths closed by flooding, and there were moments when parking was a pain in the arse. None of that came close to outweighing the good bits.

For me the image that sticks is still sitting under El Capitan, borrowing a stranger’s binoculars and suddenly spotting tiny climbers on a wall that had looked almost empty. It made everything feel enormous for a while. I like places that do that.