Every Trail Tells a Story
Taft Point
Peer into The Fissures, Yosemite’s natural skyscraper cracks.
Stand face-to-face with El Cap.
Snap the photo your friends won’t believe.
Taft Point delivers Yosemite drama with very little sweat equity. The stars here are The Fissures – deep cracks in the granite that drop hundreds of feet straight down to the valley floor. Peer through and you’ll feel your palms sweat even if you don’t have vertigo.
At the point itself, a stout iron railing guards one of the park’s grandest perches. Lean carefully, and you’re eyeball-to-eyeball with El Capitan across the canyon. Think Glacier Point without the stone walls. This is the Instagram shot – a tiny silhouette against a vast backdrop of granite and sky, 2,000 feet of air at your boots.
Named after President William Howard Taft, who once came here with John Muir, the point is proof that even politicians make good choices now and then.
From Glacier Point Road, 15 miles from Wawona Road junction and 1.5 miles shy of Glacier Point, park at the signed trailhead shared with Sentinel Dome.
Head west through lodgepole and Jeffrey pine, crossing Sentinel Creek. At 0.5 mile, pass a junction with Pohono Trail and begin a gentle descent over rocky slopes. A mile out, you’ll reach The Fissures, then continue to Taft Point itself for the big reveal.