Yosemite Webcam Live
El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and Turtleback Dome, in the park that inspired the entire US national park system. Live 24/7.
Four live views maintained by Yosemite Conservancy
Yosemite Conservancy, the park's official nonprofit partner, runs a network of live webcams covering the valley's most iconic granite landmarks and waterfalls.
Yosemite — the valley that invented the idea of a national park
On 30 June 1864, in the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, ceding Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias to California to be held "for public use, resort, and recreation" — the first time in history any government had set aside land specifically for scenic preservation rather than resource extraction. Naturalist John Muir spent decades lobbying to strengthen that protection, and in 1903 personally guided President Theodore Roosevelt on a three-night camping trip through the valley, sleeping under the Grizzly Giant sequoia and through a snowstorm near Sentinel Dome. The experience convinced Roosevelt to expand federal protection of Yosemite and went on to shape his broader conservation legacy: five national parks, 18 national monuments, and 150 national forests followed.
The granite landmarks these cameras capture have their own records. El Capitan rises roughly 3,000 vertical feet from the valley floor in a single sheer face, making it the tallest granite monolith on Earth — Alex Honnold free-soloed it without ropes in 2017, a climb later documented in the Oscar-winning film "Free Solo." Half Dome, standing 4,737 feet above the valley, was declared "perfectly impossible to climb" by California's state geologist until George Anderson reached the summit in 1875 using hand-drilled iron spikes. And Yosemite Falls, visible from its own dedicated camera, drops a total of 2,425 feet, making it the tallest waterfall in North America.
What the four cameras show
Yosemite Falls
Yosemite ConservancyLive view of Upper Yosemite Fall, the tallest waterfall in North America, with peak flow in early summer.
Watch live →El Capitan
Yosemite ConservancyLive view of El Capitan's 3,000-foot granite face, with Half Dome visible in the distance.
Watch live →Half Dome
Yosemite ConservancyLive view of Half Dome from Ahwahnee Meadow, just east of Yosemite Village.
Watch live →Turtleback Dome
Yosemite Conservancy · Air Quality StationLive view looking west toward the Sierra foothills, doubling as an air quality monitoring station.
Watch live →For decades, Yosemite staged a nightly "Firefall," pushing burning embers off Glacier Point to cascade down the cliff face — a man-made spectacle discontinued in 1968. Today, nature performs its own version each February, when the setting sun aligns precisely with Horsetail Fall, lighting the thin cascade orange-red until it appears to glow like molten lava, with no fire involved at all.
Yosemite beyond the webcams
Mariposa Grove: home to hundreds of giant sequoias, including the roughly 3,000-year-old Grizzly Giant.
Glacier Point: a panoramic viewpoint over Half Dome, Yosemite Valley and the high country.
Tunnel View: the classic first glimpse of the valley, framing El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall together.
A wartime president signed away scenic land while fighting to hold a country together, and four decades later a president and a naturalist camped under a sequoia and changed how an entire nation thinks about wilderness. Yosemite didn't just become a park — it invented the template every other national park would later follow.
When to watch
Mid-February: for the natural "Firefall" effect on Horsetail Fall, when sunset light turns the cascade fiery orange.
Getting there: Yosemite Valley sits in the heart of Yosemite National Park, roughly four hours from San Francisco, California, USA.
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