Tunnel View Yosemite
— — the valley the road opens onto.
Not only on a wall.
“The eastern portal of the Wawona Tunnel opens directly onto the valley. El Capitan rises on the left, three thousand feet of granite face. Bridalveil Fall hangs on the right, 620 feet from rim to talus. Half Dome carries the back of the frame. The view is the result of a deliberate choice by the engineers in 1933, who routed the new road south of the old one so that drivers would round the curve and meet Yosemite Valley whole, all at once. Ansel Adams made Clearing Winter Storm from this stretch of road. Most arrivals stop, even when they had not planned to.
Tunnel View Yosemite, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Tunnel View sits at the east portal of the Wawona Tunnel on State Route 41, at about 4,400 feet of elevation, on the southwest rim of Yosemite Valley in Mariposa County. The tunnel itself runs 4,233 feet through Turtleback Dome, the longest highway tunnel in California when it opened in 1933, and was built to replace the original Wawona Road. The pull-off east of the portal frames El Capitan to the left, the Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Fall to the right, and Half Dome at the back of the valley. The viewpoint lies within Yosemite National Park, designated a national park in 1890 after John Muir's campaign and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984.
The light is best in winter and at the edges of the day. Late afternoon backlights El Capitan and pushes the granite faces into warm orange while the valley floor falls into shadow. After a winter storm clears, mist rises from the floor and the high cliffs catch sun above it, the scene Ansel Adams photographed as Clearing Winter Storm from this stretch of road. Bridalveil Fall flows at full strength from spring snowmelt through about mid-June, dropping 620 feet from a hanging valley left by glaciers. By August the fall thins to a ribbon, sometimes blown back to mist on a south wind. The view holds in every season; the colour of the light does the most of the talking.
Tunnel View has two paved parking lots flanking the road just east of the tunnel; the larger lot is on the north side. There is no fee at the pull-off, only the standard park entrance fee paid on the way in. The viewpoint stays open through the year and is one of the rare valley pull-offs accessible at night. Sunrise warms Bridalveil Fall first; sunset lights El Capitan last. The lots fill on summer weekends and during the firefall window on Horsetail Fall in mid- to late February, when light angle and water bring a brief glow to a different fall a few miles east. Bring layers; the wind off the valley is colder than the elevation suggests.