Yosemite West, California Yosemite West, California Yosemite West is an unincorporated community of resort homes located just outside the southern area of Yosemite National Park, just off Wawona Road, a continuation of State Route 41 from Fresno. It is situated south of the Chinquapin intersection of Wawona Road with Glacier Point Road at an altitude of . The elevation reported by the USGS is . The community is part of Henness Ridge, nearly above the southern banks of the Merced River and State Route 140 from Mariposa. As early as 1912 the cutting of timber in the Chinquapin area was started and logs
Geology of the Yosemite area the past couple million years was the primary shaping force of the features (such rapid uplift would have greatly accelerated all types of erosion). Geology of the Yosemite area The exposed geology of the Yosemite area includes primarily granitic rocks with some older metamorphic rock. The first rocks were laid down in Precambrian times, when the area around Yosemite National Park was on the edge of a very young North American continent. The sediment that formed the area first settled in the waters of a shallow sea, and compressive forces from a subduction zone in the mid-Paleozoic fused the seabed