Cook’s Meadow Loop

Would you pay $ 35 to see a former land fill? Millions of visitors do just that!
Visitors pay a $ 35 entrance fee when driving into Yosemite National Park, and will first see Yosemite Falls, at 2425′ the tallest in North America, just as they drive around Cook Meadows.
Cook Meadows is one of the few meadows at 4000′ elevation. It is located at the very end of Yosemite Valley, with Glacier Point on one side, Yosemite Lodge at the Falls on another side, and Yosemite Village on a third side.
There is a second prominent meadow in Yosemite, in the northern section. It no longer exists, as the meadow was dammed up in the early 1900s and now lies beneath 50 feet of water of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, source of drinking water for much of the Bay Area.
When the valley was settled by white men in the late 1800s, they built a town on Cook meadows, with Ford model T s parked diagonally next to stores alongside the dirt road. Later they moved the town over to the edge of the valley, and used Cook Meadows as a land fill. Eventually Cook Meadows became a campground for tourists in the 20^th century.
The area was trampled over quite a bit, as there were no trails built until much later.
In the 1997 – 1998 El Nino year, the Yosemite Valley and Cook Meadows were flooded by the overflowing Merced river. Afterwards, the Meadows was dug up, and the garbage from the landfill removed, so that the Meadows would have a natural drainage for rising waters. Camping was banned, wooden boardwalks added, and the Meadows restored to its former luster.
We walk from our hotel at the Ahwahnee, through Yosemite Village, to Yosemite Falls, around the edge of the Meadows. We continue walking through Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, the primary lodge in the park, and around the backside of the Lodge, which border on the meadow.
Hiding in the bushes in the early morning is an adult stag deer, with an impressive set of antlers. During the winter these deer will shed their antlers to conserve energy, and grow a new set in the summer.
We continue walking on asphalt trails, with small fences on both sides, to keep people from wandering off onto the yet to be fully restored areas of the meadows. We reach Swinging Bridge, a wooden pedestrian bridge, over the Merced River, with Yosemite Falls towering in the background.
As we walk alongside the Valley Loop road, we see a coyote hunting for squirrels in the brush of the meadows. A bus slows down to allow the tourists to click away on their cameras. The wife and I walk slowly along side the road, checking out the coyote 100 feet away.
Deer are very common, coyotes less common, black bears mainly seen at dusk and at night, and bobcats rare, and mountain lions all but gone from the meadows. Grizzly bears are extinct in California, but can be seen in Wyoming, Montana and Alaska.
We walk back to our hotel, with the walk completely around the meadows taking some 3 hours. That evening, while still dusk, we do see a bobcat, catching a squirrel for dinner. Sorry, but that’s not on my dinner plate tonight!

We were really bad tourists. We basically had very limited time in Yosemite, so we just hopped off the shuttle bus, did a lot of oohing and aching and taking pictures of the beautiful landscape and walking around trails we lucked into. We came in the middle of winter in-​between major blizzards, so a lot of things were hidden under snow. Yet we appreciated the fact that the trails are built to help protect the fragile environment and let the meadow begin to restore itself with the help of the national park.

This is a really easy trail loop spanning about 1 mile, with flat terrain and stunning views. You can see Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, Glacier Point, and Sentinel Rock all in this little short loop. In fact, I passed it while leaving and entering the park (going towards the Upper Pines Campground), and almost drove right by it. You’ll see side/​street parking all along both side of the road, and a wide, flat meadow with a bridge winding through it, and that’s when you know you’re at Cook’s Meadow.
If you’re taking the shuttle in, you can access it from shuttle stop #5, #9 (these two are across the street from each other) the easiest. It is bike and pet accessible, as well as wheelchair accessible, so you can keep that in consideration. But really it’s a hike that will take you (at most) 30 minutes, and yet offer some beautiful views. I think it’s a great introduction to the park when you enter, or even a great goodbye upon exiting.
I went in the morning in late November, after I had checked out from my camp, when the dew had frozen over the meadow and it was just GORGEOUS. The views you can get, even on that tiny bridge were lovely… The sun slowly peeking out behind the mountains and catching the frozen dew, spinning silver colors around, trees ribbed in fall colors. Short, and so worth the trek through. I imagine it’s also pretty spectacular in summer, when the meadow has tons of blossoms and blue sky.