When a young Scotsman named John Muir arrived in San Francisco in 1868, it is said that he asked for directions to "anywhere that's wild." He was pointed toward the Sierra Nevada, and it was there that a love story between man and nature began. Legend has it that he ...

500 to 200 million years ago The Sierra Nevada region was once submerged beneath a sea. Sediments slowly accumulated on the ocean floor, growing thousands of feet thick and compressing the layers into sedimentary rock. 200 to 80 million years ago A slab of the Earth's crust, called a plate, began to ...

Although Yosemite's history as a national park goes back more than 100 years, its geologic history is timeless. Glaciation is one of the many geologic forces at work shaping the Yosemite landscape. The human history of Yosemite is no less fascinating. From American Indians to European-American explorers and entrepreneurs to ...