Taft Point in Yosemite National Park is reached by a 2.2 mile roundtrip hike from the trailhead parking area off Glacier Point Road and brings visitors to a scenic overlook of Yosemite Valley from a sheer cliff. There are two classic Yosemite photo spots here at the end of the trail. One has an old metal barrier at the edge. The other can be seen from the barrier while looking to the left. Be careful on the edge!
After reviewing our photos, I spent a long time considering which location was actually Taft Point. You will see both in pictures labeled Taft Point. However, I found out later on the National Park Service website that Taft Point is the area with the barrier.
Taft Point is named for President William Howard Taft, who visited Yosemite in 1909 with John Muir and came across the point. He was the 27th President at the time, inaugurated earlier in the year, and began a tour of the southern and western states of the United States in September, reaching Yosemite in October.
During a hike, it is believed that Taft had lunch near the point. President Taft called his days with Muir in Yosemite the most enjoyable of his life, according to The Mercury News. Muir first visited Yosemite in 1868 and was instrumental in the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1890. As President, Taft established Glacier National Park and protected Zion National Park by declaring it Mukuntuweap National Monument.
The parking lot for the Taft Point trailhead is located between the Mono Meadows Trail and Washburn Point. It also serves as the Sentinel Dome trailhead. The hike to Sentinel Dome is a 2.2 mile roundtrip hike. The Dome provides views of El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and Half Dome.
The sheer cliffs of Taft Point offer breathtaking views of Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Falls and El Capitan. Taft Point is roughly 3500 feet above the valley floor, about 300 feet higher than Glacier Point. Unlike Glacier Point, there are no amenities at the point.
There are also narrow fractures in the granite here. These are known as The Fissures. They can drop up to 2000 feet – so watch out for them! I was pretty worried about them from the descriptions online, but we had no issue making it to the overlook without feeling like I was in any danger.
The bigger issue was that the cliff is almost sure to set off any fear of heights that you may have hiding deep in your soul. To this day, even just thinking about the edge of the cliff there can give me a rush of adrenaline. One way that we saw people look over the edge was to lay flat on their stomach and scoot to the edge, but we just held the GoPro Fusion over the edge to capture the height for viewing later.
Taft Point looks like it would be a popular place for wedding or engagement photos. A wedding permit is required for any wedding-related photo shoot. There is a non-refundable application fee of $150 with your application. If approved, a special use permit is mailed to you to sign and return.
The Taft Point trail can be closed due to snow. When we were there during mid-June, the sign that the trail was closed was still up. There was some snow on the trail in the forest, but the beginning near the trailhead and the end near Taft Point were both clear for us. We established this before beginning by speaking to another hiker returning on the trail. We were able to follow the footsteps of others and not get lost. But there were definitely a few moments where we had to carefully consider whether we were following the trail or simply some lost hikers. We would not attempt the last section in the snow due to the fissures and the possibility of slipping off a cliff near the edge.
The Taft Point hike is listed as of moderate difficulty by the park service. It is about a mile one way, and we managed to complete it without any difficulty. Here was a photo that we took along the way of the trail:
We ended up taking two other Yosemite hikes during our vacation here. We did the short hike up to Mirror Lake on the day that we arrived, and hiked at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on our last day in the park. I doubt there is a bad hike in Yosemite, but we would recommend all three of these to other visitors.
Yosemite National Park
Glacier Point
Hetch Hetchy
Taft Point
Yosemite Airport
Yosemite Firefall
Yosemite Weddings