After the heat of Visalia and the giant that is General Sherman, it was time for the main course of the Yosemite National Park motorcycle trip. We spent two full days there, and I still feel it was too short – although for a motorcycle trip on a tight schedule, two days is already a luxury.
Entering Through Mariposa and Climbing to Lee Vining
On the first day we left Mariposa and took Route 120, which crosses the park from west to east, end to end. Right after El Capitan, the road starts climbing in earnest, on the way to Lee Vining, where we’d be staying for the next two nights.
The entrance to the park from Mariposa passes by this rock or dolmen next to the narrow road, with no idea yet of what we were about to find.
We stopped wherever we saw the chance, mainly hoping to spot a bear. In Yellowstone we’d seen a mother bear with her three cubs, and here we’d been told there were bears too.
The climb is a spectacle in itself: up to 9,000 feet, about 3,000 meters, you can feel the air cooling as you pass through dense forests, ride alongside lakes where bears were probably taking a quiet swim, and the road narrows into a string of curves right before reaching Lee Vining, sitting at around 2,000 meters, which we entered through a narrow valley on a fairly steep descent.
Meanwhile, Nati was the one reading up on everything about the parks and telling us what to actually do. You always need someone who hands it to you “done.”
Wherever you stopped, the views were stunning.
About 5 km from the hotel it started raining, so we stopped to put on our rain gear and rode the rest of the way slowly. As soon as we walked through the door, we were told a massive hailstorm had just ended, with hailstones the size of ping-pong balls. We’d made it by the skin of our teeth — five minutes’ difference between getting slightly wet and needing a helmet inside our helmet.
Lee Vining: a Town the Size of a Sigh
Lee Vining is tiny. A couple of restaurants where you line up to order and then eat whatever comes in a basket, at covered outdoor tables; a quick-service burger spot with decent prices; a couple of shops. And that’s it. But when you’ve got Yosemite on one side and Mono Lake on the other, you don’t really need much else — oh, and the sunsets, of course.
El Capitan, Half Dome, and a Valley Carved by Ice
Yosemite is where we took the only rest day of the whole trip, something I’d recommend without hesitation on any route with 8-hour riding days. We rented a family house in Lee Vining, at the park’s eastern exit — which also meant we could head straight back toward Seattle from there. With a car at our disposal for the day, we dressed down (almost flip-flop casual) and went to see El Capitan and Half Dome up close.
Nature in Yosemite doesn’t do halfway. El Capitan and Half Dome dominate the landscape like two stone guardians, with waterfalls that seem to fall straight from the sky, over a glacial valley carved out over millions of years. Riding in there genuinely leaves you speechless — that’s not a figure of speech, it’s just what happens.
Nothing beats traveling with good friends.
The Museum, the Rangers, and the Bears
We also took the chance to visit the park museum — a small theater where they tell the story of the people who first shaped the idea of Yosemite as a protected space. We also caught a ranger talk, where they explained how the park’s approach to its bears has evolved over the years. Ranger activities run throughout the day, and it’s worth stopping for one — each session runs about an hour.
And sure enough, right as we entered the park we saw a truck pulled over, with people inside staring fixedly at the trees and pointing out something moving among them. It was about 30 or 40 meters away from us, acting as if we didn’t exist. We could only make out half of its body, since it was hidden among the trees, but just like in Yellowstone, we’d spotted a bear again.
We didn’t see anyone climbing El Capitan that day — we did, however, see where the climbers camp, in tents at the base of the wall. For whatever reason, no one was on the rock that day. A shame, because seeing someone up there, tiny against that sheer vertical face, is one of those postcard moments that sticks with you.
But JP had some photos from last year, when he did see climbers on the wall, so here are two of them to give you a sense of the sheer scale of what they’re climbing.
Fallen Trees: The Gas Station No One Clears Away
One thing that caught our attention in Yosemite, which we’d see again later at Mt Rainier, was the sheer number of trees knocked down or split by lightning, left lying inside the forest and along the road, with no one clearing them out. Thinking about it, it’s a little unsettling — all that dry material is, in practice, a gas station waiting for a spark. We asked the rangers, and they explained that they simply aren’t allowed to remove them from the forest. So there they stay, year after year.
In the end, what stays with you is how immense the park is, and how small you feel inside it. Honestly, the photos speak far better than any paragraph I could write here.
📍 Resources and recommendations
- Book lodging in Lee Vining or Mariposa well in advance if you’re going in August — options are limited and fill up fast.
- Plan for at least one rest day inside the park if you’re riding long stages by motorcycle — you’ll appreciate it, and it gives you time to see the park slowly instead of just passing through.
- The NPS ranger talks and activities are included with park admission and are well worth it, especially if you have some time to spare.
- If weather allows, go see the base of El Capitan up close — with luck you’ll spot someone climbing, which is far more impressive in person than in any photo.
Seattle to Yosemite Motorcycle Trip — Full Series
- Seattle to Yosemite: Planning an 11-Day Motorcycle Trip
- Highway 1: From Astoria to the Redwoods
- San Francisco to Big Sur Motorcycle Trip: Golden Gate, the Gremlin Myth, and a Wildfire Closure
- Sequoia National Park Motorcycle Trip: Heat & Gas
- Yosemite National Park Motorcycle Trip: El Capitan & Half Dome
- Crater Lake, Lake Tahoe, and the NF23: The Last Days of the Ride