Taft Point. Glacier Point. Sentinel Dome

8/15/2021

~7.5 miles

Trailhead: Taft Point trailhead on Glacier Point Road

Last Yosemite hike for the summer before kids would get busy with school.

We have always hiked to Glacier Point via Four mile trail and never have driven there. Visiting the Taft Point and get iconic visor shot has always been in the unchecked the bucket list.

We secured permit to visit the park last weekend but the air got really smoky and the AQI went above 150 level, so we decided to wait another week. Arnav woke up early last Sunday and secured another permit at 8am as soon as recreation.gov site opened for weekly reservations.

Arnav wanted to hike the back country – specifically Mount Conness but we decided to stay around the valley for the views. Valley gets very hot, so this hike around the high point made more sense, we were hoping t get some cooler breeze.

The air quality wasn’t too bad but there was a layer of smoke present which clouded the views, but nonetheless views of the Yosemite Valley has never failed to impress.

We left home at 5.30 am and got to the trailhead art 10, started hiking at 10.15.

We decided to do this hike clockwise and headed to the Taft Point first. It was a short 2 mile hike with some elevation gain. The views opened up when we got closer to the fissures.

We spent a good amount of time here enjoying the views and getting photos.

We then headed towards Glacier Point, which was about 3 miles away. There was some short but serious elevation gain while going to the Glacier Point. We saw the baby bear along the way, which was very close to the trail and enjoying his food without worrying about human hikers.

As we passed the woods and made a turn, impressive views of the Half Dome appeared! We didn’t expect that, it was a pleasant surprise.

Another mile or so, we reached to the Glacier Point. The weather got really warm, and ice cream bar from the shop hit the spot!

We still had about half an hour left before we would hit the return time mark. We were thinking of going to the Panorama Point on the Panorama Trail initially but we decided to skip that part and decided to chill.

The next stop would be another 1000 ft. climb to the Sentinel Dome. We left Glacier Point at 1.30pm and headed towards our next destination. It was getting warm in the afternoon but the great thing was that most of the trail was shaded. We finally reached to the Sentinel Dome. The last little climb to the dome was steep but well worth!

The 360 degree panorama looking over the entire Yosemite Valley starting from the Cathedral Rocks to the Clouds Rest was remarkable. Gad we saved the best views for the last!