Yosemite National Park Trivia
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99 free Yosemite National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Yosemite National Park trivia quiz covers the granite valley in California's Sierra Nevada that gave the world the very idea of a national park. It ranges across Half Dome and its cables, El Capitan and the Nose, Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil and the February 'firefall' glow on Horsetail Fall, the giant sequoias of the Mariposa Grove, Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass, the Ahwahnee Hotel and the bears that once broke into cars. There is plenty of history too: the Ahwahneechee and the Mariposa Battalion of 1851, Galen Clark and Lincoln's 1864 grant, John Muir's glaciers-not-earthquakes theory and his 1903 camping trip with Theodore Roosevelt, the Buffalo Soldiers who patrolled the park, the flooding of Hetch Hetchy, the first female ranger, the Firefall from Glacier Point and the fall of the Wawona Tunnel Tree. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a Tunnel View picnic or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Sequoia, Grand Canyon and US National Parks quizzes next.
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Q 01Yosemite National Park is in which U.S. state?
California
Yosemite National Park lies in California, spread across four counties in the central Sierra Nevada, roughly 140 miles east of San Francisco.
Q 02Which president signed the 1864 Yosemite Grant, the first US land set aside for preservation?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant on June 30, 1864, in the middle of the Civil War; it set the precedent for Yellowstone in 1872.
Q 03Under the 1864 grant, the valley and the big sequoia grove were handed to whom to manage as a park?
The State of California
The State of California ran the valley and the sequoia grove as a state park until 1906, when Congress and the president accepted them back into federal control.
Q 04In what year did Congress create Yosemite National Park after a naturalist's campaign?
1890
Congress passed the act creating Yosemite National Park on October 1, 1890, protecting the high country surrounding the state-run valley grant.
Q 05Which Scottish-born naturalist led the campaign for the 1890 park and co-founded the Sierra Club?
John Muir
John Muir, born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838, co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and argued that glaciers, not a catastrophic collapse of the floor, carved the valley.
Q 06Which president camped with Muir near Glacier Point for three days in May 1903?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt camped with Muir for three nights in May 1903; Muir urged him to take the valley and grove back from the state, which Roosevelt did by signing a 1906 bill.
Q 07Who found the park's biggest sequoia grove in 1857 and became the Yosemite Grant's first guardian?
Galen Clark
Galen Clark came upon the grove in 1857 and in 1866 was appointed the Yosemite Grant's first guardian, a post he held in two stints until 1897.
Q 08Which landmark, rising 4,800 feet above the valley floor, is the park's most famous?
Half Dome
Half Dome's summit stands at 8,839 feet, roughly 4,800 feet above the valley floor, and the sheer-faced dome appears on the state's commemorative quarter.
Q 09Who first climbed the park's famous dome in October 1875 by drilling iron eye bolts into the rock?
George Anderson
George Anderson, a local trail builder, drilled eye bolts and roped his way to the summit on October 12, 1875, after first trying pine pitch on his boots; Muir followed within weeks.
Q 10Hikers finish the trail up the park's famous dome by hauling themselves up the final 400 feet using what?
A pair of steel cables
A pair of steel cables, first strung by the Sierra Club in 1919, runs up the dome's east shoulder; rangers raise them on poles in late May and lower them in October.
Q 11Under the 2012 permit plan, how many hikers may climb the dome's cables daily?
300
The 2012 plan capped cable hikers at 300 a day, roughly 225 day hikers and 75 backpackers, chosen by a preseason lottery held each March.
Q 12Which trio made the first ascent of Half Dome's northwest face in 1957, the first Grade VI climb in the US?
Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick and Jerry Gallwas
Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick and Jerry Gallwas spent five days on the Regular Northwest Face in June 1957, the first route in the United States rated Grade VI.
Q 13Which 3,000-foot monolith on the valley's north side is the world's most famous big-wall site?
El Capitan
Q 21Which grand valley hotel, opened in 1927, inspired the Overlook Hotel's interiors in The Shining?
The Ahwahnee
The Ahwahnee opened in July 1927 and is a National Historic Landmark; its Great Lounge and lobby informed the Overlook's sets in Kubrick's 1980 film.
Q 22Why was the grand valley hotel temporarily renamed the 'Majestic Yosemite Hotel' from 2016 to 2019?
A trademark dispute with the outgoing concessionaire
Outgoing concessionaire Delaware North claimed trademarks on the hotel's name, and the resulting trademark dispute forced the renaming; a 2019 settlement with the Park Service restored the original name.
Q 23Which stand of sequoias near Wawona is the park's largest, with several hundred mature trees?
El Capitan, Spanish for 'the Captain', rises about 3,000 feet of unbroken rock from the valley floor, and its south-west and south-east faces hold well over a hundred climbing routes.
Q 14What is the 3,000-foot monolith's most famous climbing route, up the prow between its faces?
The Nose
The Nose follows the monolith's central prow between its south-west and south-east faces; Warren Harding's team first climbed it in November 1958 using siege tactics and fixed ropes.
Q 15Roughly how many days of climbing did the first ascent of the Nose take in 1958?
47
The first ascent took 47 days of climbing spread over 18 months; the final 12-day push topped out on November 12, 1958.
Q 16Which married couple free-climbed the Nose together in October 2005?
Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden
Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden, then married, freed every pitch of the route over four days in October 2005; days later Caldwell free-climbed it again in under 12 hours.
Q 17Which valley waterfall, 2,425 feet in total, is the tallest in the park?
Yosemite Falls
Yosemite Falls totals 2,425 feet in three sections; the upper fall alone plunges 1,430 feet, and flow peaks with snowmelt in May before often drying up by August.
Q 18Which low-volume valley waterfall has the highest single vertical drop in the park, 1,612 feet?
Ribbon Fall
Ribbon Fall plunges 1,612 feet in one unbroken drop from the valley's north rim, west of the great monolith; fed by a small creek, it usually runs dry by midsummer.
Q 19Which small waterfall on the great monolith's eastern edge glows orange at sunset for a few February evenings?
Horsetail Fall
Horsetail Fall, a seasonal thread of water off the monolith's east buttress, catches the low February sun at dusk and glows like lava when skies are clear and snowmelt is flowing.
Q 20What was the Yosemite Firefall, ended in 1968?
Burning embers pushed off Glacier Point each night
Camp Curry founder David Curry would bellow 'Let the fire fall!' at 9 pm; NPS director George Hartzog killed it because it was unnatural and the crowds trampled the meadows.
Mariposa Grove
Mariposa Grove, near the park's south entrance by Wawona, holds about 500 mature giant sequoias and reopened in June 2018 after a three-year restoration that removed the old parking lot.
Q 24What happened to the Wawona Tunnel Tree, the sequoia carriages drove through since 1881?
It fell under heavy snow in 1969
It was about 2,100 years old and 234 feet tall; the tunnel had weakened it for good.
Q 25Which valley in the park's northwest was dammed in 1923 to supply water to San Francisco, over Muir's opposition?
Hetch Hetchy
Hetch Hetchy Valley in the park's northwest was flooded when its dam was finished in 1923, and the water first reached the city 167 miles away in 1934.
Q 26Which 1913 act of Congress authorised flooding the valley in the park's northwest?
Raker Act
The Raker Act, signed in December 1913, granted San Francisco the right to dam the valley; Muir and the Sierra Club had fought the scheme for years and lost.
Q 27Which river drains the entire northern part of the park?
Tuolumne
The Tuolumne River rises below the park's highest peaks and runs west through the high country and its own 'Grand Canyon' to the reservoir in the park's northwest.
Q 28Which river flows through Yosemite Valley itself?
Merced
The Merced River runs the length of Yosemite Valley; Ice Age glaciers widened its V-shaped canyon into today's U-shaped valley, and it leaves the park at the western Arch Rock entrance.
Q 29What is the highest point in the park, at about 13,120 feet?
Mount Lyell
Mount Lyell, in the park's south-east corner, tops out at about 13,120 feet; the Lyell Glacier on its north face was once the park's largest and has lost most of its ice over the past century.
Q 30Which State Route 120 pass is the park's eastern gate and the highest highway pass in the Sierra?
Tioga
Tioga Pass carries State Route 120 over the Sierra crest at the park's east entrance; snow normally closes it from November until late May or June.