Author's note: on the brilliance of faraway eyes -- The Ahwahneechee -- The Mariposa Battalion -- The cutting edge: the creation and evolution of Yosemite National Park -- Building an icon: Yosemite's roads, trails, and lodgings -- The quiet giants: Galen Clark and the big trees -- John Muir: the wanderer who was never lost -- Hetch Hetchy -- Images of Yosemite -- The climbers -- Sculpting Yosemite: tales of glaciers and waterfalls -- Yosemite wildlife -- Yosemite's furies: wildfire, rockfall, and flood -- Appendix: Yosemite National Park statistics.