Yosemite visitor centersYosemite National Park has museums in the valley and at the Mariposa Grove; visitor centers at the Crane Flat entrance, Wawona, Tuolumne Meadows, and in Yosemite valley.
Three favorites are the Valley Visitor Center, just west of the main post office, the Happy Isles Visitor Center (ride the Yosemite Valley free shuttle bus to these)
and the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center, on the right just a little bit up the road into the meadows area from the Crane Flat direction.
The valley museum occasionally features paintings and watercolors.
For the summer of 2004 paintings by Chris Jorgensen, such as shown in the photo, (courtesy of the National Park Service), below:
The Valley center has the usual maps, books, postcards and a multilingual One Day at Yosemite program. There is also a huge raised relief map of the geological features.
The film Spirit of Yosemite usually plays every half hour when the Visitor Center is open. (early 2006 - Mon.- Sat. 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4:30.) This is a great film with some swooping aerial views along with history and scenes from all seasons and all parts of the park.
The Indian Village of the Ahwahnee behind the visitor center is usually open during daylight hours. Sometimes staff present programs about Ahwahneechee skills and culture.
The Wilderness Center is a couple of buildings away with displays on pre-trip planning, minimum impact and Yosemite's wilderness.
The Happy Isles Visitor Center (usually not open in the winter) is up a side trail on the other side of the river from the popular John Muir trail to Vernal Fall, Nevada Fall and Half Dome and can be easily overlooked, but it is well worth a stop. It has natural history exhibits including the animals pictured below, tree and geology explanations.
 
 
There is a great interactive display with the voices of animals including bears, raccoons, mountain lions, ringtails, bobcats, coyotes and more.
Nearby are short trails focusing on the Happy Isles environment: forest, river, talus slope and the fen (marsh).
 
There is an outdoor exhibit on the geologic story of rockfalls in Yosemite.
You can place a refundable deposit and borrow a day pack with activities and guidebooks to help you explore. They come in four subject areas: birds, geology, trees and small wonders.
The Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center has has the usual maps, books, postcards, various natural history displays including a butterfly display and a raised relief map of the high country. Shown below is the section from Tenaya Lake to Tuolumne Meadows.
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Yosemite Today / Yosemite Guide newspaper has lots of safety info, a calendar of park activities including Ranger walks, and hours of operation for visitor centers and museums.
The commercial services section of Yosemite Today is usually a separate newspaper. It has hours of operation for tours, stores, food service, post offices, laundromat, showers, auto service, gas stations and more. It usually has detailed maps of the exact locations of stores, etc. at Wawona, Tuolumne Meadows, Curry Village, Yosemite Village and Yosemite Lodge.
Online they are frequently combined at:
http://www.nps.gov/yose/now/today.htm
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How much water will there be in the Yosemite waterfalls? has the answer and links to photo tips, geology and wildflowers.
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The Yosemite Concession Services has 360 degree or wide-angle views of various places in Yosemite Valley. Go to:
http://www.yosemitepark.com/content2hdr.cfm?SectionID=17&PageID=11#
and click on Interactive Map in the right hand column
and click on one of the topics. (Warning: they do take awhile to load).
If you've never been to Yosemite, for a general tour of the valley, start with the views titled Tunnel View (#1), Cook's Meadow (#4)and Glacier Point(#10). The Glacier Point view looks down on part of the trail from the valley to the top of Half Dome, along the stretch by Vernal and Nevada Falls. Many of the rest of the views are of the concessioner's facilities.
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Yosemite trips index
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