The only entrance we used was the south entrance where there are two different signs announcing the arrival into Yosemite National Park. Unfortunately neither of these signs are indicative of the park you are about to see. This is one of the most visited parks in the United States and I expected the entrance to reflect that. As we passed through the entrance for the first time I thought that these couldn’t possibly the official signs. Every other park we have visited so far had a unique but uniform look fitting of a national park and those parks accommodate fewer visitors each  year.

Yosemite is such a large and incredible park, shouldn’t the entrance reflect that? I’m not expecting anything exceptionally extravagant but something that announces your arrival into such a magnificent park like the above photo shows for the Grand Canyon. There is not even a National Park Service logo on the first entrance sign to Yosemite above. The second sign does include this logo although it is quiet small. In the defense of Yosemite personnel, while looking through photos of other national parks I discovered similar disappointments with the entrance sign. The photo below is of the first entrance sign we encountered at Grand Canyon National Park. Even this one is more significant than either of the signs to Yosemite.

While exploring the visitor center in Yosemite Village we inquired about the entrance signs and were told at least one of the other entrances had a better sign. Unfortunately time constraints and the distance we would have to drive to get pictures of this sign prevented us from seeing it. Experiencing more of the natural features in Yosemite was a higher priority than taking a picture by a better sign. We were also told that there are plans to improve the South Entrance Sign in the future. To see what the other entrance signs looked liked I searched and found this photo below courtesy of ezeiza on flickr. A much nicer sign but still not as significant as might be expected at a park like Yosemite