Skip to content
viewyas
EN

United States United States scenic viewpoint

Glacier Point

You can see 28 km from here, looking east.

Calculating the panorama…

Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.

The view

Up to 28 km away.

Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.

58out of 100

Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).

  • 28 kmFarthest ridgelooking east
  • 90%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
  • 22Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
  • 2,183 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint

From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.

The sun

The best sunsets are from June to September.

When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.

  1. Jansouth-west98 min before the sea-level sunset48%
  2. Febsouth-west88 min before the sea-level sunset47%
  3. Marwest68 min before the sea-level sunset47%
  4. Aprwest42 min before the sea-level sunset52%
  5. Maywest18 min before the sea-level sunset62%
  6. Junnorth-west22 min before the sea-level sunset80%
  7. Julnorth-west20 min before the sea-level sunset82%
  8. Augwest32 min before the sea-level sunset85%
  9. Sepwest60 min before the sea-level sunset82%
  10. Octsouth-west80 min before the sea-level sunset72%
  11. Novsouth-west96 min before the sea-level sunset59%
  12. Decsouth-west100 min before the sea-level sunset46%
  • Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
  • Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
  • %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).

The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.

The place

Glacier Point.

Viewpoint above Yosemite Valley, in California

Glacier Point is a scenic viewpoint in United States, 2,183 m above the sea.

On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 28 km away, looking east.

22 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mount Lyell (3,997 m), 27 km away.

The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 90% of the circle.

The skies are clearest from June to September.

Girl Posing at Glacier Point Yosemite 2013
Tuxyso · CC BY-SA 3.0

Get there and stay

Plan the visit

A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

From above

The viewpoint and its surroundings.

The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Glacier Point seen from above (Sentinel-2)
Seen from above: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6 × 6 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Around, in OpenStreetMap

  • 37other viewpoints within 5 kmGlacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Sierra Point and 34 more
  • 27named peaks within 5 kmSentinel Dome, Mount Starr King, Basket Dome and 24 more
  • 10marked trails within 3 kmJohn Muir Trail, Four Mile Trail, Theodore Solomons Trail and 7 more
  • 3shelters and huts within 5 km
  • 32car parks within 3 km
  • 1visitor centres within 5 kmYosemite Welcome Center
  • 8restaurants and cafés within 3 km
  • 11campsites within 10 kmCurry Village, Upper Pines Campground, Lower Pines Campground and 8 more
  • 3places to stay within 10 kmAhwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Valley Lodge
  • cable car and funicular stations within 5 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.

In our other atlases

What you see from Glacier Point, and what is near.

Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.

Peakyas80 mountains within 25 km
Half Dome2,693 m · 3.7 kmMount Clark3,513 m · 13 kmRed Peak3,566 m · 17 kmMerced Peak3,567 m · 19 kmTriple Divide Peak3,541 m · 21 kmMount Florence3,831 m · 23 kmParsons Peak3,704 m · 24 kmSimmons Peak3,809 m · 25 km
Lakeyas1 lakes within 15 km
Tenaya Lake0.7 km² · 15 km
Darkskyas6 dark-sky places within 30 km
Tenaya CanyonBortle 3 · 2.0 kmIndian CanyonBortle 2 · 3.0 kmHalf DomeBortle 2 · 3.9 kmTenaya LakeBortle 2 · 15 kmGrand Canyon of the TuolumneBortle 3 · 22 kmMount LyellBortle 2 · 26 km
Canyonyas5 canyons within 20 km
Illilouette Gorge · 1.6 kmTenaya Canyon · 2.0 kmIndian Canyon · 2.3 kmClark Canyon · 12 kmMerced Gorge · 17 km

Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.

Photographs

The view, as people saw it.

Other viewpoints nearby.

Glacier Point

United States

  • 58Viewyas Score
  • 28 kmFarthest ridge
  • 22Peaks in view
  • 2,183 mAltitude

Half Dome

United States · 4 km

  • 84Viewyas Score
  • 243 kmFarthest ridge
  • 58Peaks in view
  • 2,655 mAltitude

See the guide

Dewey Point

United States · 8 km

  • 84Viewyas Score
  • 230 kmFarthest ridge
  • 43Peaks in view
  • 2,250 mAltitude

See the guide

Taft Point

United States · 3 km

  • 69Viewyas Score
  • 212 kmFarthest ridge
  • 3Peaks in view
  • 2,268 mAltitude

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name and typeWikidata (Q3108318) · CC0
SunJ. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms
Peaks in viewPeakyas (Wikidata, CC0)
Panorama and altitudeCopernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
CloudsNASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2)
What is around© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons
Sister atlasesPeakyas, Lakeyas, Darkskyas, Canyonyas, Cascadyas, Riveryas

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.