Photo by Stacy Geiken

–Doug McConnell

Yosemite National Park is one of my favorite places and I’ve been there hundreds of times since I was a little kid. I camped out there and stayed in hotels, motels and trailers. I like to spend the night inside the Park whenever I can, but there are some excellent accommodations just outside of Yosemite’s boundary, too.

Down Highway 120 back towards San Francisco half an hour or so The Groveland Hotel is an historic spot, just look out for the ghosts. Closer to the Park and just off of Highway 120 near the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir, the Evergreen Lodge is a terrific base camp for exploring Yosemite and its surrounds. Just beyond the Park’s southern edge on Highway 41, the Tenaya Lodge is a comfortable retreat to hunker down in between forays in Yosemite. On the east side of the Park, at the foot of Tioga Pass and by the shore of Mono Lake, the town of Lee Vining has a variety of good overnight options as does El Portal on the Park’s west side along Highway 140.

Our good friend and my colleague at KRON TV in San Francisco, Stanley Roberts, has written an excellent piece about a lodge in El Portal. Thanks, Stanley, and stay tuned here because we’ll soon be posting a story we shot with Stanley back in San Francisco. He takes us to some of his favorite eateries in the City, places he found working on his own terrific website, www.we8there.com. Check it out, take a look at Stanley’s hotel tip in El Portal and then get to Yosemite as quickly and as often as you possibly can. Tell us where you stay and what you like.

We’re delighted to feature the following guest blog from master aerial photographer and our pal Bob Campbell. Bob was too unassuming to include a link to his stunningly beautiful work on his site, so we’ll do it for him. Thanks, Bob.

I just watched the Ansel Adams video. I studied with Ansel in Yosemite in 1968 and we became friends. Ansel introduced me to William Garnet, the noted aerial photographer, and my path in life was set.

Here are a couple of aerialsof Yosemite which I shot last fall. The flight restrictions over the park require that aircraft stay 2,000 feet above the highest the highest point within 2,000 feet horizontally. It kind of spoils the granduer of the place. Shooting a mountain from above makes itseem rather insignificant. But the photos are interesting as an overview of the valley in relation to the surrounding peaks.

– Bob Campbell