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United States United States summit

Half Dome

You can see 243 km from here, looking south-west.

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 243 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.

84out 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).

  • 243 kmFarthest ridgelooking south-west
  • 98%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
  • 58Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
  • 2,655 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-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset48%
  2. Febwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset47%
  3. Marwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset47%
  4. Aprwest2 min before the sea-level sunset52%
  5. Maynorth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset62%
  6. Junnorth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset80%
  7. Julnorth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset82%
  8. Augwest6 min before the sea-level sunset85%
  9. Sepwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset82%
  10. Octwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset72%
  11. Novsouth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset59%
  12. Decsouth-west-2 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

Half Dome.

Granite dome in Yosemite National Park, California

Half Dome is a summit in United States, 2,655 m above the sea.

On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 243 km away, looking south-west.

58 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mount Ritter (4,010 m), 30 km away.

The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 98% of the circle.

The skies are clearest from June to September.

Half Dome10
Rainer Hübenthal ( talk · contribs ) · 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.

Half Dome 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

  • 25other viewpoints within 5 kmGlacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Sierra Point and 22 more
  • 23named peaks within 5 kmEast Quarter Dome, Sentinel Dome, Mount Starr King and 20 more
  • 7marked trails within 3 kmJohn Muir Trail, Mist Trail, Panorama Trail and 4 more
  • 2shelters and huts within 5 km
  • 2car parks within 3 km
  • 1visitor centres within 5 kmYosemite Welcome Center
  • 13campsites within 10 kmLittle Yosemite Valley Campground, Upper Pines Campground, Yosemite Valley Backpackers Campground and 10 more
  • 3places to stay within 10 kmAhwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Valley Lodge
  • cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
  • restaurants and cafés within 3 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 Half Dome, and what is near.

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

Peakyas88 mountains within 25 km
Half Dome · this placeMerced Peak3,567 m · 17 kmMount Florence3,831 m · 19 kmParsons Peak3,704 m · 20 kmSimmons Peak3,809 m · 21 kmMount Maclure3,928 m · 22 kmMount Lyell3,997 m · 23 kmRodgers Peak3,958 m · 24 kmElectra Peak3,792 m · 24 km
Lakeyas1 lakes within 15 km
Tenaya Lake0.7 km² · 11 km
Darkskyas6 dark-sky places within 30 km
Half DomeBortle 2 · this placeTenaya CanyonBortle 3 · 2.0 kmIndian CanyonBortle 2 · 4.5 kmTenaya LakeBortle 2 · 12 kmGrand Canyon of the TuolumneBortle 3 · 21 kmMount LyellBortle 2 · 23 km
Canyonyas4 canyons within 20 km
Illilouette Gorge · 3.3 kmTenaya Canyon · 4.9 kmIndian Canyon · 5.4 kmClark Canyon · 9.0 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.

Half Dome with Eastern Yosemite Valley
Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0
Yosemite Falls Trail May 2011 002
King of Hearts · CC BY-SA 4.0
Yosemite Falls Trail May 2011 016
King of Hearts · CC BY-SA 4.0

Other viewpoints nearby.

Half Dome

United States

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

Dewey Point

United States · 12 km

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

See the guide

Taft Point

United States · 7 km

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

See the guide

Glacier Point

United States · 4 km

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

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name and typeWikidata (Q925252) · 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.