Last Friday, I hiked the Pohono Trail, which begins at Glacier Point and ends at Tunnel View. I see that I called the Panorama Trail under-appreciated in a previous post. Well, the Pohono Trail is even more under-appreciated. While a fair number of people have heard of the Panorama Trail, it seems very few people have ever heard of the Pohono Trail. Indeed, I frequently get questions about the Panorama Trail, but only rarely get them about the Pohono Trail.
What’s so nice about this trail? Well, it has great views of Yosemite Valley from a variety of progressively different viewpoints. Each viewpoint provides a view that is pretty similar to the previous one, but the small amount of change from viewpoint to viewpoint adds up fast. The view from Glacier Point is very different than the view from Tunnel View. If you like 360° panoramas, this trail has it. If you like those edge-of-the-cliff experiences, this trail has lots of those. To top it off… hardly anyone hikes on most of this trail.
Yosemite Falls from Sentinel Dome
Half Dome, Nevada Fall, much more, from Sentinel Dome (which provides a 360° panorama).
Mount Starr King and the Clark Range from Sentinel Dome.
Cathedral Rocks and El Capitan from Taft Point (one of my favorite places in Yosemite).
Yosemite Falls and Eagle Peak from Taft Point
View east from Dewey Point (and Katrin, one of our hiking party)
Crocker Point
Closeup of Bridalveil Fall from Crocker Point (this is the first view of Bridalveil Fall, despite being closer to it at Dewey Point, where it's not visible)
And, Stanford Point
I didn’t take pictures from Glacier Point or Tunnel View (or any of the Inspiration Points), but you’ve seen those before, probably.
As far as 14-mile hikes go, this one is relatively moderate. (Half Dome is the same distance, but dramatically harder.)
Tales from Yosemite - Jeffrey Trust's Blog 
July 2, 2009 at 11:28 am
Interesting blog, Jeffrey! Ironic that I should find out about it from Loyd, rather than directly from you.
I love the parts of this trail that I’ve done, but I don’t think I’ve done the whole thing straight through because of having to do a car shuttle. I suppose I could do a long out and back. How’s the section between Dewey and Taft?
July 5, 2009 at 6:01 pm
The section between Dewey and Taft… um, now it’s been a few weeks I don’t remember much! Crossing Bridalveil Creek was nice and I seem to remember some flowers.