San Francisco to Yosemite

San Francisco City Hall has a dome that rises 307 feet above the ground, making it about 42 feet taller than the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington.

You're heading from San Francisco to Curry Village in Yosemite Valley — about 190 miles and roughly four hours of driving.

The shopping center visible near this interchange sits on one of the most significant archaeological sites on the West Coast.

You're crossing the East Oakland flatlands, a broad alluvial plain built from sediment washing out of the hills ahead.

You're passing through one of the most important natural corridors in the East Bay.

You're driving through the Livermore Valley, one of California's oldest wine regions. Grapes were planted here in the 1840s, decades before Napa became famous.

The Altamont Pass wind farm, launched in 1981, was one of the first large-scale commercial wind energy installations on Earth.

The California Aqueduct you can see near here moves water over four hundred miles from the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta south to Los Angeles.

You're driving through Tracy, a city that barely existed before the railroad arrived in 1878. It was named after a railroad executive, Lathrop J.

The ground beneath you is literally dropping.

You're driving through some of the most productive farmland on earth, and almost none of it would exist without engineered water.

Oakdale has hosted a professional rodeo every year since 1954, making it one of the longest-running rodeos in California.

Just off the highway here is the Knights Ferry Covered Bridge, the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi at 330 feet.

That flat-topped ridge you can see running along the landscape is one of the best examples of an inverted landform in North America.

This is Moccasin Powerhouse, built in 1929 and still generating hydroelectric power from Tuolumne River water that has traveled a hundred and sixty-seven miles by…

The large body of water you may catch glimpses of through the trees is Don Pedro Reservoir, one of the biggest in California at over 2 million acre-feet capacity.

The landscape around you carries the signature of the 2013 Rim Fire, which burned 257,000 acres over nine weeks and became the largest wildfire in recorded Sierra Nevada…

The entrance gate here is named for a white oak tree that once measured eleven feet in diameter, likely one of the largest valley oaks ever recorded.

This junction takes its name from sandhill cranes that historically stopped here during migration, feeding in the wet meadow before continuing their routes along the…

Bridalveil Fall drops 617 feet in a single plunge, making it one of the tallest freefall waterfalls in Yosemite Valley.

The Firefall was one of Yosemite's strangest traditions.