Travel Guide to California

2024-25 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA 33 NATURALLY AWESOME California's parks will soothe your soul BY BONNIE SMETTS S cramble up boulders in Joshua Tree's Wonderland of Rocks. Time travel on a historic ship in San Francisco Bay. Stand beneath giant redwoods that author John Steinbeck called ambassadors from another time. Whatever your passion, Cali- fornia's 280 state parks and 32 national parks, seashores and monuments—whose mission is to protect the state's natural and cultural treasures—are the gateway to ex- periences as varied as the state's geography. Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada Yosemite National Park, with its glacier- sculpted valley and granite peaks, is justifiably one of the world's natural treas- ures. Come in spring when the waterfalls thunder to the valley floor. Come in summer when the park is abuzz with vis- itors to explore by tram, bike or on foot. Choose a gentle half-hour hike or reserve a spot for the all-day climb up Half Dome. Junior Ranger Walks are popular with kids. Backpackers can enjoy the solitude of the park's high country and expert rock climbers have dozens of granite walls to scale. Don't leave the park without stopping at Glacier Point with its views of Half Dome and Yosemite Valley or at the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias to marvel at its 2,900-year-old Grizzly Giant. To see a really big tree—the world's largest by volume—head south to Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks and marvel at the weighty General Sherman. While still in the mountains, take a trip to Lake Tahoe, North America's largest alpine lake. Along the lake's west shore, D.L. Bliss, Emerald Bay and Sugar Pine Point state parks offer camping, hiking and white sand LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK Manzanita Lake and Lassen Peak, above, are prime attractions in Lassen Volcanic National Park, which in 1916 became the fifteenth national park established by Congress. The greater Lassen area has been volcanically active for 3 million years. STATE & NATIONAL PARKS

• Cover