Clouds Rest
Yosemite National Park (Tioga Road) · near Tuolumne Meadows / Lee Vining · Sierra Nevada / Yosemite
Hiking
At a glance
- Difficulty
- strenuous
- Route type
- out-and-back
- Distance
- 12.4 miles
- Elevation gain
- 3,000 ft
- Time needed
- day
- Best season
- Late June–October (Tioga Road open) · Wildflowers July, crisp views September
Permits and booking
- Permit required
- No
- How the permit works
- No permit for the day hike (unlike Half Dome). Tioga Road (Hwy 120) must be open — typically late June through October. Yosemite entry reservation may apply in summer; check current requirements.
- How hard the permit is to get
- 1 of 5
What is here
- Features
- Higher than Half Dome (9,926ft) · Looks DOWN on Half Dome · No permit needed · Knife-edge summit ridge · 360° High Sierra views
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Not permitted
- Good for a first timer
- No
Hiking detail
- Intl tip
- The trailhead is on Tioga Road (Hwy 120) near Tenaya Lake — pair it with a swim or paddle at Tenaya (kayak guide) and the Tuolumne Meadows high country. Tioga Road closes with the first big snow, so this is a summer-fall hike. The nearby Cathedral Lakes and Lembert Dome make excellent additional Tioga Road days.
The guide
Clouds Rest is the answer to a question every Yosemite hiker eventually asks: how do I get Half Dome's views without the permit…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Clouds Rest — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.768, -119.489