Yosemite National Park and ponds, of streams, of hiking trails, and of roads. Two federally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers, the Merced and the Tuolumne, begin within Yosemite's borders and flow westward through the Sierra foothills, into the Central Valley of California. On average, about 4 million people visit the park each year, with most visitor use concentrated in the seven-square-mile (18 km) area of Yosemite Valley. Almost all of the landforms in the Yosemite area are cut from the granitic rock of the Sierra Nevada Batholith (a batholith is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock that formed deep below the surface).
Yosemite National Park that moved down the river valleys. Ice thickness in Yosemite Valley may have reached during the early glacial episode. The downslope movement of the ice masses cut and sculpted the U-shaped valley that attracts so many visitors to its scenic vistas today. The name "Yosemite" (meaning "killer" in Miwok) originally referred to the name of a renegade tribe which was driven out of the area (and possibly annihilated) by the Mariposa Battalion. Previously, the area had been called "Ahwahnee" ("big mouth") by indigenous people. Yosemite Valley has been inhabited for nearly 3,000 years, though humans may have first visited the