7.5 miles: Do take a stroll or bike ride in Cook's Meadow, which is across Northside Drive from a trail head to Lower Yosemite Falls. Besides its views of Half Dome, odds of spotting deer are good in early morning and dusk.

23.1 miles: If Glacier Point Road is open (it's usually passable from May through November, depending on the snowpack), do get to Glacier Point and nearby Washburn Point. They're about an hour's drive from the valley.

39.6 miles: Do wolf down some calories at Todd's Cookhouse Bar-B-Que (40713 Highway 41, Oakhurst; (559) 642-4900, www.lat.ms/197tIcs), which does ribs, burgers, brisket, fried catfish, Memphis-style pulled pork sandwiches - a range of rich, dripping delights. Dinner entrees about $9-$16.

27.2 miles: If creature comforts are a priority, do stay at Tenaya Lodge (1122 Highway 41, Fish Camp; (559) 683-6555, www.tenayalodge.com, just outside the south entrance to the park. Besides its 249 hotel rooms and multiple pools (two indoors) and restaurants, the lodge added the Ascent spa in 2010. And in 2008, it acquired 53 cottages next door, formerly known as the Apple Tree Inn. Ice rink and sledding hill in winter. Rooms for two in the hotel generally are $295-$395 in warmer months. Winter rates can be half that.

20 miles: Do consider a meal in the historic Wawona Hotel (8308 Wawona Road, Wawona; (209) 375-6556, www.lat.ms/115kIwO) dining room. The room is lined with picture windows, redwoods just outside, and the inside is lighted by hand-painted lamps depicting the Mariposa Grove's old drive-through tree, which fell in 1969. Breakfast combinations, lunch entrees, sandwiches and burgers are about $12-$15. Dinner entrees, about $22-$34. Street address confuses some GPS devices.

9.4 miles: In spring and early summer, do take the flat 1-mile hike to Mirror Lake, where Mt. Watkins is eerily reflected in the still water. But be advised that the lake is more of a seasonal pond.

42.2 miles: If Tioga Road is open, do make time for Olmsted Point (sometimes spelled Olmstead), a glacier-scraped granitic wonderland on the way from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows.

YOSEMITE: A TIMELINE

A look at the history of Yosemite, from the retreat of glaciers to today.

Between 2 million and 10,000 years ago: Pleistocene Ice Age glaciers retreat from Yosemite, leaving deep valleys and carved granite wonders, including Half Dome, which rises 8,836 feet above sea level, 4,733 feet above Yosemite Valley.

1851: After many generations living in and near Yosemite Valley, members of the Ahwahneechee tribe are driven from the area by the U.S. Army's Mariposa Battalion.

1864: President Lincoln signs a preservation bill granting control of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to the state of California.

1868: Josiah Whitney of the California Geological Survey calls Half Dome "perfectly inaccessible."

1875: Climber George G. Anderson summits Half Dome, using a drill and iron eyebolts.

1890: Yosemite National Park is created, but Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove fall outside its boundaries. Local tourist rituals include a drive-through tree in Mariposa Grove and the evening "firefall," in which workers dump burning embers from Glacier Point to be admired by viewers in the valley below.

1892: The Sierra Club is born. John Muir is its president.

1903: President Theodore Roosevelt joins Muir on a three-day Yosemite camping trip. Three years later, the park is expanded to include Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove.

1916: The Adams family visits from San Francisco, including 14-year-old Ansel, who brings a new Kodak Brownie camera on his first Yosemite trip.

1919: The Sierra Club installs removable steel cables near the top of Half Dome to aid summertime climbers.

1968: The park service abandons the nightly "firefall."

1969: The Wawona drive-through tree collapses.

2010: Park officials begin requiring Half Dome hikers to have permits.

2012: A summer hantavirus outbreak kills three visitors and sickens six others in tent cabins that went up in 2009 in the valley's Curry Village. The outbreak is blamed on waste from infected deer mice. Cautionary literature is posted and circulated. Ninety-one tent cabins are razed and replaced by others with fewer hiding places for rodents. More than 18,000 mouse traps are set. As of early June, no new cases of hantavirus (which often mimics flu symptoms at first) had been reported.

(Source: National Park Service)