Old-Fashioned Fun Up-to-Date at Yosemite

Visitors to California’s most popular national park are usually bound for the awesome Yosemite Valley. But the vast preserve also hosts less crowded attractions near its southern entrance.

Spring is an especially peaceful and pretty time to visit the Wawona area of Yosemite National Park. It’s home to the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, one of the grandest stands of giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada.

You’ll enjoy lodging in the delightful Wawona Hotel that dates to 1879 and is the state’s oldest resort hotel. It boasts a nine-hole golf course, tennis court and swimming pool, as well as 28 additional guest rooms that opened this season.

Interpreters in Costume

Nearby is the Pioneer Yosemite History Center, where costumed interpreters portray life in the park’s early days. You can even board a vintage horse-drawn carriage for a ride around the grounds. Or mount up for a horseback ride to a waterfall.

There are old-fashioned barn dances and barbecues on the hotel lawn, too. And just outside the park entrance a narrow-gauge logging train whistles for visitors to take steam-powered excursions in the forest.

To drive to Yosemite’s Wawona area from Los Angeles, go north on Interstate 5 and California 99 to Fresno, then exit on California 41 to the park. Entry is $5 per vehicle.

Near Fish Camp, about four miles before the entrance station, train buffs should look for the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad. (Don’t turn earlier at the road sign to Sugar Pine.)

Beginning Saturday and every weekend throughout summer, as well as daily in August, you can ride a restored logger steam train of the early 1900s. Open flat cars with seats made of tree trunks wind through the woods on 30-minute narrated trips that depart at 10:30 a.m., noon, 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. But beware of soot.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., quaint Jenny rail cars powered by Ford Model A engines make excursions over the same four miles of track. Originally they followed the steam trains to check for fires and carry supplies to the loggers.

Adults pay $6.75 and children 3 to 12 pay $3.75 to ride the steam train; tickets for the Jenny rail cars are $4.75 and $2.75.

Nearby you’ll find nice accommodations in the woods at the Narrow Gauge Inn, where rooms are $50 to $80. Breakfast and dinner are served daily at this mountain lodge, plus brunch on Sundays from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. For reservations call (209) 683-7720.

Just beyond the park’s southern gateway, take the short side road from California 41 to the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. Cars have been forbidden to drive through the grove since 1969, but some of the huge trees are near the parking area.

Visitors like to stroll along the pleasant walking trails that lead to the most notable sequoias, such as the 200-foot Grizzly Giant which is estimated to be 2,700 years old. Another has a tunnel in its trunk you can walk through.

You also can tour the grove aboard open-air trams that go on one-hour narrated excursions. Fares are $4, children 5 to 12, $2, with departures from the parking lot between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Continuing north on the main road, you’ll soon spot the gracious Wawona Hotel, where guests relax on verandas that overlook an expansive lawn shaded by enormous pines. The scene takes you back to turn-of-the-century times.

Another reminder that the hostelry dates to a bygone era is that only 48 of its 105 rooms have private baths. Of those, nearly half are the original claw-foot tubs. Rooms with their own facilities rent for $64.50, the others $51.50.

That longtime park concessionaire also operates the hotel’s scenic nine-hole public golf course. Greens fees for the par-35 course is $6.75, $9.50 to play 18 holes.

Special fun for hotel guests and other visitors is the family-style barbecue from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays on the lawn. Meat is cooked on open grills as you fill your plate with salad, ranch-style beans, corn on the cob and apple pie. The meal costs $8.75 with top sirloin steak, $4.50 with hamburger.

On Sundays in the hotel dining room a buffet brunch is served from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for $7.30, children $4.50. Dress up a little; no shorts, cut-offs or white T-shirts allowed. Other days the hotel serves a buffet lunch from noon to 1:30 p.m. For dinner reservations call (209) 375-6556.

Wawona Hotel reservations: (209) 252-4848 or write Yosemite Park and Curry Co., 5410 E. Home Ave., Fresno 93727.

Park History

To learn about the park’s early era, head to the Pioneer Yosemite History Center. A dozen historic structures have been preserved in the forest, just up the road from the Wawona Hotel.

On June 24, they come alive for the summer months when people in period dress re-create activities like blacksmithing and quilt making. The costumed residents are on hand Wednesday through Sunday; other days park rangers lead tours of the vintage buildings.

A treat for the children is climbing aboard an old horse-drawn carriage for a short ride around the history complex. It’s also fun to join a Western-style hootenanny when volunteer musicians organize a barn dance on the Fourth of July and every other Saturday night throughout the summer.

For a leisurely look at the beautiful Wawona area, take a horseback ride from the stables near the history center. Guided trail trips range from two hours for $20 to all-day outings for $45. A popular ride is to the Chilnualna waterfall.

While campgrounds in busy Yosemite Valley require Ticketron reservations, sites in the Wawona Campground are on a first-come, first-served basis. Campers can select from 100 sites for $6 per night; no RV hookups. Campfire programs begin at 8 p.m.

For park information, call (209) 375-6391 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

Return to Los Angeles via your outbound route. Or go north in the park on California 41 to see Yosemite Valley, then take California 140 west to join California 99 south at Merced.

Round trip from Los Angeles to Wawona in Yosemite National Park is 588 miles.