Yosemite Hikes Home » Not Quite Yosemite » Ahwahnee Hills Regional Park » Trail Map

Ahwahnee Hills Park Trail Map

Distance:  2.7 miles (4.3 km) round trip for the full loop, with several shortcuts available

The red lines show the main hiking trail; this loop totals 2.7 miles (4.3 km). The south and east sections of the hike pass largely through meadow dotted with grand old Black & Valley Oaks - this Google Street View pointing northeast into the southern end of the park is fairly representative of the terrain here - while the northwest part of the trail includes some moderate climbing and more brush, but also a larger variety of wildflowers to compensate, provided you're there in the spring.

The orange lines show various alternate trails and shortcuts. A rustic barn, built during the park's tenure as a tuberculosis sanatorium and featured in a variety of photos here, lies in the south end of the park along the right-hand orange trail roughly midway between the two parking areas. The lone east-west orange corridor takes you past a picnic area beneath a row of mature oaks; there's a photo of it here.

The purple binoculars mark a brief but steep spur trail to a scenic overlook with views of the mountains to the southeast. You can't see the Sierra crest from here; the peaks visible from the overlook top out at six or seven thousand feet and are below treeline.

The upper orange P shows the main parking area, which includes bathrooms and picnic tables. The entrance is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays to give the park host a breather, but you're still allowed in if you park at the south end of the park - marked by the other orange P - and enter through a narrow pedestrian gate there. Turn at the sign for Wasuma Elementary School and then pull in to the dirt lot immediately to your left.

The trail-free hole in the north end of the park is a 160-acre parcel (making the park 400 acres altogether) that was added to the park in 2015. It's a hillside crowded with brush and scrub oak, and there aren't any completed trails through it yet. Trail building and maintenance, along with nearly everything else in the park, is done by volunteers, so it's hard to predict when this area will be accessible.