Yosemite Valley
Yosemite National Park · near Yosemite Valley / El Portal · Sierra Nevada / Yosemite
Rock Climbing
At a glance
- Skill level
- all-levels
- Grade range
- 5.4 (Swan Slabs) to 5.15 (El Cap free routes)
- Best season
- Spring (Apr–Jun) and fall (Sep–Nov) best · Summer hot but longer days · Winter: lower crags only
Permits and booking
- Permit
- Day climbing: no permit required. Overnight big wall climbs: free wilderness climbing permit, self-register at Camp 4 kiosk (no quota as of current NPS policy). Timed entry reservation required for driving into the Valley May–Sep between 6am–4pm.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Rock Climbing detail
- Climb types
- big-wall · trad · multi-pitch · bouldering
- Rock type
- Granite
- Route count
- 750+ free routes · 350+ big wall routes · 1,300+ boulder problems
- Signature routes
- The Nose, El Capitan · Royal Arches · Swan Slabs
- First timer note
- The 'Ask a Climber' program (free, mid-May through June and Sept through mid-Oct) posts climbing stewards with telescopes at El Capitan Meadow daily — the best way to watch real climbers on the wall up close. Climbing Rangers also run 'Climber Coffee' events at Camp 4 weekly.
- Intl tip
- Standing in El Capitan Meadow below the wall and watching real climbers — tiny specks of color inching up 2,000 feet of vertical granite — is one of the most spectacular free spectator experiences on earth. Binoculars help enormously. The 'Ask a Climber' program sets up telescopes here daily in the climbing seasons. Even without binoculars, the scale of the wall is comprehensible only from directly below it.
The guide
There is no more consequential piece of rock in the history of climbing than El Capitan. The 3,000-foot granite monolith that r…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Yosemite Valley — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.734, -119.6376