Itinerary: Salt Lake City, UT to Yosemite (via Reno, NV & Lake Tahoe)
Green Route (765 miles): Salt Lake City, UT to Yosemite (via Reno, NV & Lake Tahoe)
Start your Yosemite road trip in Salt Lake City, UT. Travel west across the top of Nevada on Interstate 80 (I-80) through Wendover, Elko, and Winnemucca to Reno. Head south on US Highway 395 to Carson City. Detour west to shimmering Lake Tahoe or keep following US Why. 395 south through Bridgeport to Lee Vining, next to Mono Lake. Take CA Hwy. 120 (Tioga Road) west to Tioga Pass and Yosemite’s East Entrance. (Note that Tioga Road and the park’s East Entrance are only open seasonally, usually from June through October.)
Explore Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City is Utah’s biggest metropolitan area, surrounded by the Wasatch Mountains, a four-seasons outdoor playground. North of the city lies the Great Salt Lake, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest saline lake of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. Biggest of all the lake’s islands, you won’t want to miss Antelope Island State Park. Reached via a causeway or by boat, the island is home to all kinds of wildlife, from antelope, deer, bobcats, and coyotes to a herd of American bison first brought here in 1893.
I-80 Rolling through Nevada
Heading west of Salt Lake City, you’ll drive over 100 miles through the desert salt flats where land speed records and time trials often take place, as seen in the movie The World’s Fastest Indian. Once in Nevada, I-80 lopes up and down over mountain ranges, passing true Western cowboy and ranch towns. Elko and Winnemucca are lively places to learn about Nevada’s heritage of Basque sheepherders and contemporary folk life in the West. South of Elko, the Ruby Mountains beckon for rugged hiking and backcountry trips, and even heli-skiing in winter.
Reno, Carson City & Virginia City
Reno, calling itself “the biggest little city in the world,” is a convenient place to stop over. Downtown is stuffed full of casino hotels, art galleries and museums, independent bookstores and coffee shops, and an artificial whitewater park for kayaking and inner-tubing in summer.
Just 30 miles south of Reno is Carson City, with its elegant historic buildings including the state capitol. For a real taste of the Old West, detour east to Virginia City, a hurly-burly Victorian mining town that sprang up around the Comstock Lode, a mighty vein of silver struck in 1859.
Lake Tahoe & the Eastern Sierra Nevada
If more of the great outdoors is what you seek, head west to Lake Tahoe, aka “The Big Blue.” You can motor around its shores on scenic byways. The lake also offers water sports in summer, and skiing and snowboarding opportunities in winter. Otherwise, keep following US Hwy 395 south along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada past Bridgeport and Lee Vining, the latter perched on the shores of ancient Mono Lake, dotted with alien-looking tufa formations.
Yosemite’s East Entrance is usually open from June until October, depending on the snowfall. Follow Tioga Road (Highway 120) over Tioga Pass, sitting atop the Sierra Nevada crest, and past the beautiful Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite’s high country. Then you’ll wind down past White Wolf and Crane Flat before arriving in the park’s famous Yosemite Valle
