By Nora Heston Tarte
AZParenting Travels
Book a vacation you won’t soon forget!
If you ever attended summer camp as a kid, you know the magic of spending your days outdoors, getting dirty and building friendships. But that sort of connecting with nature doesn’t have to expire after high school. In fact, you can capture all of those nostalgic feelings while sharing a summer camp-style vacation WITH your kids.
A handful of resorts in Yosemite focus on the luxury camp experience, offering family friendly amenities, swimming pools, calendars brimming with outdoorsy activities and more. After all, what screams summer camp more than smores around a fire? And hiking through towering sequoia trees?
Pick a camp experience
Your camp experience starts with your hotel. But we’re not talking about your typical accommodations. Resorts like Firefall Ranch, Evergreen Lodge and Tenaya Lodge offer full campuses so you’re not confined to your room, and you have plenty of excuses to stay on property for days on end.
At Firefall Ranch, and its sister property Evergreen Lodge, both located in Groveland, the focus is on family cabin accommodations. Firefall Ranch, the company’s newest property, boasts one-and two-story cabins with multiple bedrooms so at the end of a long day of togetherness, you can each retreat to your own corners for a bit of rest and relaxation. The lodges offer balconies off of master bedrooms complete with a comfy couch for cozying up with a glass of wine and a two-way fireplace that illuminates the outdoors while simultaneously heating the indoors all with the flick of a switch.
Tenaya Lodge offers many kinds of accommodations, including cottages that can house multiple families under one roof for that big generational vacation or single hotel rooms inside of the main lodge so you’re closer to all of the action.
At Firefall Ranch, the activities calendar includes a 24/7 pool and nightly smores. There’s also an 18-hole mini golf course, nine-hole disc golf course, volleyball net, arcade basketball, table tennis and shuffleboard all within walking distance (and at no additional charge). The elevated experience is the dining options, with a full menu offered poolside and two on-site dining rooms, one that offers fine dining—not exactly what we consider camp food.
Perhaps the best perk, however, are the cruiser bikes strewn across the property and available for anyone to use so you can pick up and stroll from the pool to your cabin in no time (although bringing your own helmet is recommended).
Evergreen Lodge has cozy family cabins (including some with bunk beds) as well as glamping options for guests. On-site there is a big saltwater pool and jacuzzi, plus bocce ball courts, zip lining, horseshoes and hammocks. Tuolumne Hall is a game room and theater filled with toys for kids to share and bond over after dinner at the long, wooden picnic tables outside of the main restaurant.
The activities calendar here includes nightly smores, games of Bingo, educational lessons about local animals and plants, stargazing and arts and crafts including bracelet making and basket weaving. Off-site, you can book guided tours and group treks into Yosemite National Park.
Tenaya Lodge is located in Fish Camp on the opposite side of Yosemite National Park and offers a blend of the more traditional hotel experience and a Yosemite-style wilderness escape. Whether you choose to stay in one of the property’s vast cabins or hole up inside the main lodge, you’ll still have access to all the property has to offer (including chess boards and live music in the lobby).
Here there are two pools—one inside and one outside—with the indoor pool hosting dive-in movies each evening. The attached game room includes everything from Skee-Ball and video games to air hockey and foosball. There’s also a rock-climbing wall, free mountain bike rentals, and, of course, those nightly smores no summer camp experience would be complete without. Expert tip: Ask for a trail map so you can find the hidden waterfall nearby, preferably on mountain bikes.
Take advantage of advanced booking of archery lessons for the whole family or guided flashlight hikes. In the winter, ice skating and snowshoeing are both available. One of our favorite experiences was simply walking the short path to Timberwolf Pizzeria, still on the Tenaya property, for a cozy and simple meal. As an added bonus, Tenaya offers a breakfast buffet option for easy grubbing on your way out to adventure.
Inside the park
While outside lodges really go all in on the summer camp experience, you don’t come to Yosemite without a desire to see the park. After all, seeing the quartz behemoth Half Dome should be on everybody’s bucket list.
While hiking Half Dome is not for the faint of heart—and certainly not for children—there are several hikes in the Yosemite Valley that proffer good views. Mirror Lake Trail is one of the more kid-friendly options, a quick two-mile jaunt takes you to and from the base of Half Dome where you’ll also find views of Tenaya Canyon, Mount Watkins and Washington Column.
For kids who can handle slightly slippery terrain, the walk to Vernal Falls along the Mist Trail is a can’t miss. The hike comes in just under two-and-a-half miles with a footbridge viewing point 1.5 miles in. The hike is mostly a giant stone staircase taking you from the base of the waterfall to the top. Once you get there, you can turn around and come back or continue along The Mist Trail to Nevada Fall.
In the springtime, this looks like a scene out of Neverland with big streaking rainbows stretching across the giant rock formations with little step offs where you can catch your breath while admiring the beauty.
Looking for other kid friendly treks? Lower Yosemite Falls is a one-mile journey near the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center (where you’ll want to stop anyway), a .6-mile Glacier Point Trail features a paved, stroller-friendly path, a visit to Mariposa Grove unearths views of towering sequoia trees or Big Trees Loop Trail, which boasts a stroller and wheelchair accessible .3-mile trail.
If you want to trade that summer camp experience in for a more traditional family camping experience, you can book sites inside Yosemite National Park through the National Park Service campground reservations website.
Neighboring Mariposa
Forty-five minutes outside of Yosemite National Park, Mariposa is one of the region’s larger towns. It’s also a good way to get out and explore the surrounding region.
The historic area is rich in California Gold Rush history with an old jail built in 1858 still standing today and the oldest superior courthouse this side of the Mississippi, the Mariposa County Courthouse. The Mariposa Museum and History Center and the California State Mining and Mineral Museum are both musts for kids looking to learn more about Mariposa’s heyday and the surrounding geological makeup. Near the Mariposa County Visitor Center, kids can even pan for gold.
We personally love to visit Sierra Cider when we’re in town. Depending on the time of year the experience can change with a fall festival and Halloween-centric events taking over in Fall and a winter wonderland setup each December. But any time of year the two-story tasting room is open for business, pouring classic and experimental apple cider made from the on-site bounty. There are small snacks for kids and food trucks come in routinely. At some points during the year, there’s also apple picking.
The rest of the town of Mariposa includes a lineup of gift shops and a small winery called Butterfly Creek. Sip local wines on the expansive property set in the shadow of Yosemite’s vast landscapes before shopping a collection of gift shops where you can pick up your Yosemite souvenirs.
Nora Heston Tarte is a Nevada-based travel writer who once lived in Arizona. She has an 11-year-old son and recently took him on an inaugural trip to Yosemite where they stayed at Firefall Ranch and Tenaya Lodge and visited the park, as well as nearby Mariposa.
More articles by Nora Heston Tarte:
AZParenting Travels: Discover Lake Tahoe