Things to do in Northern California?

[ericm979]

Yosemite is one of the busiest parks in the country. You'll need to check on line for the time frame you are considering - but I've heard there is now a "reservation" system, even to just drive through Yosemite Valley.

Yep. They implemented that during Covid when the crowds were insane, and kept it.

The crowded parts are Yosemite valley and to a lesser extent the Tioga pass road. Everyone wants to go to the valley because it's spectacular. I avoid Yosemite during the summer until school starts. It's less crowded in September, but that's usually the height of fire season. Try to go during the week.

There's a ton of national parks in CA, if you're 62 or older its probably worth buying a lifetime pass for $80. It'd be easy to hit up four in a couple week.

 

[ericm979]

If you wish to see spectacular scenery, take a drive over Hwy 4 to Carson City. This is Ebbetts Pass, and passes by the small towns of Arnold, Camp Connel, and Bear Valley. The scenery is equivalent to that in Glacier National Park-- huge jagged high granite peaks with deeply carved valleys in between. For many miles it is more equivalent to a one lane paved road but it is no problem at all in a passenger vehicle.

Highway 4 and ebbets pass are awesome. I've ridden it many times on a bicycle.

If you go east, drop down to the tiny town of Markleeville for a visit, then head over highway 89 to the eastern sierras.

With all the snow we got this winter it may be August before they get the pass open!

 

[plowhog]

Here is information on the night hikes and moonbows. Some people are hesitant to hike at night due to bear activity. But during the busy summer it is not an issue, can sometimes even be a little crowded at night.

What to Do in Yosemite at Night: 10 Things to Do After Dark

Wondering what to do in Yosemite at night? Follow our list of adult and kid-friendly activities to do in Yosemite after dark.

yosemitehotels.com

 

[Rockbadchild]

There's redwoods and giant sequoias. Sequoias get larger in diameter and redwoods get a little taller. They're both huge. Sequoias are in the sierras and redwoods are along the coast. The best redwood groves are on the north coast, roughly along highway 101. Redwood national park (north of Eureka) is really nice but there's a ton of state and local parks along 101 both north of and south of Eureka, especially along the "Avenue of the giants" which is the old 101 south of Eureka. The parks in redwood country are less crowded in my experience than Yosemite and Sequoia national parks.

Sequoia national park is a couple hours south of Yosemite and has a bunch of really big trees. They're getting burnt up in fires lately so it's probably worth seeing them while there are still some groves left.



Tourist trap, don't bother unless you like that kind of thing.

Santa Cruz and the seashore north and south of it are really nice.



Maybe because I grew up there I have not been impressed with the area as a wine growing/touring area. Napa valley is the most famous wine area in CA and the most high end and touristy as a result. More down to earth would be the Shenandoah area south of Placerville in the sierra foothills, extending down to Murphys, and the Sonoma county wine country.



Highway 1 currently has a bunch of road closures which may not be fixed by August.
It's worth a trip but even on a weekday you'll need to be patient as there are a lot of foreign tourists driving slowly and erratically.




Big Basin was burnt in a huge fire in 2020 (it got to within a few miles of my place) and reopened for reservation only last summer. I'd check to see how open it is.





Lassen is really awesome. So's Mt Shasta near by.



Bodie is worth a drive.

I love the eastern sierras. There's way fewer people than the western side and the mountains are enormous and very scenic. The east side of the Sierras is basically a sheer cliff and the Owens valley is 6000' below it. The lower elevations can get hot during the day but the high country will be cool. Mammoth (a ski town) and Bishop are the larger towns in the area. Motels in Bishop can fill up when there's an event.


Lately the late summer forest fire season has often been pretty bad in the Sierras. The smoke often impacts the views of the mountains, and can be unpleasant enough that you may want to be elsewhere. If you're really unlucky there may be road closures where you want to go. I'd keep some alternate plans in mind for the coast just in case.

Though the coast can burn too. The same fire that burnt a good part of Big Basin went all the way to the shore in places.

thanks to share your local expertise, you input is appreciated.

 

[ericm979]

Thank you.

From some of the comments, it seems it may be worthwhile to look into guided trips in Yosemite to help alleviate the influx of visitors in August.

Its still going to be crowded.

Muir woods looks only to be 2.5 hours from where we're staying. Now I'm wondering if San Francisco is worth visiting (I have an office I work out of Charlotte, and one thing that hasn't changed in my life is I despise traffic).

SF is a fine city. The crime is way overblown in the media. I used to go there a lot in the '90s to music clubs and for business. The clubs were not in the best part of town. I never had a problem. Crime is a now a fraction of what it was then. Every time I go now I marvel at how clean it is.

It's still a city that's surrounded by 7 million people's worth of other cities and suburbs. So there's going to be people. But the tourist things in SF are probably worth seeing if you can put up with crowds. Bring jackets, its cold in August.

Yes it's a very liberal city but it's not like people are going to hustle you into a back alley and turn you into a Marxist. Like most places, people will leave you alone unless you hassle them.

I'd consider driving north across the Golden Gate up 1 to Mt Tam and the towns along highway 1. It gets rural pretty quick in that direction.

Here is a dumb question, exactly how long does it take to drive from the north to south border in California?

The fast but boring way on I5, it's about 800 miles.

The down side is we're kind of stuck staying around Yosemite during our time there, but the upside is the place is very nice (full kitchen for cooking, laundry, pool...) and long story, not really costing us anything, so we do have time to spend time overnight somewhere else if we wanted to depending on the drive (it looks like the redwoods would be an 8 hour drive and mentioning this to my better half, we're on the same page to stay elsewhere at night given a drive time vs what we want to do.

There's a ton of stuff to do based from the sierra foothills. I've lived in various parts of the state for nearly all of my 60+ years including the Sierra foothills, traveled a lot, and there's still things I have yet to see. It's a big state with a lot of cool stuff.

The gold rush towns along highway 49 (basically from Nevada City in the north to Mariposa in the south) are fun to visit, and the drive is scenic and fun.

 

[Sigarms]

Its still going to be crowded.

Understood. Since our boys at the time went to a rural school, seems they always have a different schedule off vs even the other schools in the county over. When we went to Florida, talked to a couple of cousins down there and our boys we're still off when it seemed their schools in Florida we're still open.

Honestly, I wasn't looking forward to a trip to Florida and in particular Disney, but we still managed to have a good time. This is, Disney was still PACKED with people IMO, but having that fast pass at least made it bearable for me LOL

Reality is our total county population is about 30k, and I like it just that way. Thing is, ANYTIME you go to a tourist spot, it's going to be kind of overpopulated with tourists. I can't stand Washington DC since I worked there, but when we took the boys and met and stayed with some other family members at the national harbor, we still had a great time exploring DC, and in particular, showing the boys how to navigate the metro system.

Problem is, for a family vacation we could always take the truck and camp out in our back yard and not have to deal with any people, I will have to agree with my wife and son that it wouldn't be as fun. You just have to know my personality. I don't even like having to wait to go out and eat LOL

With Nevada and some other options now opened to my wife and I, I don't think it will be as bad as I originally though when I started this thread LOL

And thank you for the feedback. You and some others have accomplished what information I was looking for when I started this this thread

 

[plowhog]

Here is a picture I took this morning. I'm on the east side of the Sierra Nevada range, facing west. In Owens Valley, near Bishop, CA. For perspective, Owens Valley is high desert at elevation around 4,000'.

Yosemite is on the back side of the Sierra Nevada range that is pictured, somewhat to the right. To get there from here you would travel up to Tioga Pass, then go over the Sierras.

 

[ericm979]

Here is a picture I took this morning. I'm on the east side of the Sierra Nevada range, facing west. In Owens Valley, near Bishop, CA. For perspective, Owens Valley is high desert at elevation around 4,000'.

Yosemite is on the back side of the Sierra Nevada range that is pictured, somewhat to the right. To get there from here you would travel up to Tioga Pass, then go over the Sierras.

This is why I love the east side.

Those mountains are 12-14,000' high. There's another range just as high on the other side of the valley. Pretty much everywhere you go on the east side there's a spectacular view of mountains.

Tioga pass usually opens around the end of May but it's going to be later this year due to all the snow. It should be open by August. Probably.

 

[Hughman]

Good road trip if you like mountains is over 4 & 89 to 395 south, then back over 108 (Sonora pass).

 

[Sigarms]

Good road trip if you like mountains is over 4 & 89 to 395 south, then back over 108 (Sonora pass).

Thank you.

Honestly, I'm looking more forward to the road trips "getting lost" and enjoying the scenery more so than visiting Yosemite.

I'm thinking I can kill two birds with one stone. My son seems to depend to much on his phone's GPS, and I think what he learned in scouts with topo maps has gone out the window. Time to give him some time with a new Rand McNally. In his defense, I fell into that trap when I took him to the finger lakes last year for a "father and son vacation". Was kicking myself for not thinking about bringing a state gazetteer for the area because I felt like I wouldn't need one for the area because I use to live up in that neck of the woods.