Yosemite National Park

  Yosemite Valley is almost completely flat which makes it perfect for walking and cycling. To promote this twelve miles of paved trails encircle the valley, leading to most of the attractions. Nineteen bus stops provide access to free, wheelchair accessible shuttles so there’s always a shuttle stop nearby if you get tired. We really enjoyed the paths and walked/rolled everywhere for four days.

  An accessibility guide for the park is available for downloading. It’s very accurate. We went to the visitor center, the museum and the bottom floor of the historic Ahwahnee Hotel in the valley– all are completely accessible. The trail to Indian Village of Ahwahnee is paved and the area around the village is hard packed dirt. The paved trail to view the Lower Yosemite Falls is accessible in one direction. The complete loop has one short, steep section. The paved trail to Mirror Lake is accessible. To get the best view follow the sandy path for a short distance. The trails at Happy Isles are a combination of pavement and hard packed dirt and are all accessible. The flat terrain and paved trails makes the valley one of the most accessible parks that we’ve visited.



  The trails at the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias near Wawona are not accessible but it’s possible to go a short way on the tram road. The whole area will be closed for 24 months and an accessible trail is in the plans. The Pioneer Yosemite History Center consists of relocated historic buildings with informative signs at each. The area is hard packed dirt and fairly accessible. Paved trails lead around the historic Wawona Hotel buildings which also have informative signs.

  Easy access and close proximity to San Francisco makes Yosemite the third most visited national park in the country so if you want to camp in the valley a little advanced planning is necessary, however you may find a campsite by checking with recreation.gov to see if there have been any cancellations. We managed to get three nights in the valley at Lower Pines Campground (#18) and one night at Wawona Campground (#70) near the south entrance by checking just a few days before our arrival at the park. Both of our sites were accessible with wide, flat, paved parking pads and hard packed sand around the table, fire ring and bear box.  Paved paths provided access to the restrooms. The site in Lower Pines is located along the river with beautiful views of the mountains. These are some of the nicest accessible sites that we’ve found and the campgrounds are both very pretty with roomy sites and good spacing between the sites.

   All of the roads were not cleared of snow yet so our visit included the valley and Wawona but none of the other areas. In the valley walking or taking the shuttle buses are better options than driving because parking is limited especially for RVs. The accessible parking spots at Mirror Lake and Happy Isles are not long enough for any vehicle over 25’.   Park
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   For more information about wheelchair access at Yosemite check this site – Wheelchairtraveling