Tour begins: 5:00 PM, The Westin St. Francis. A transfer is included from San Francisco International Airport to The Westin St. Francis, the elegant Grand Dame of Union Square, close to the city's main attractions - with a cable car stop at the front door. Join us this evening for a welcome cocktail reception and dinner.

Before there was a National Park Service, the job of policing and protecting the national parks belonged to the U.S. Army. At Sequoia and Yosemite, the parks' guardians were the Buffalo Soldiers, who rode out every spring from the Presidio, crossing 300 miles on horseback to the Sierra Nevada. Drive a route that follows the Buffalo Soldiers' path across the agricultural Central Valley. Stop in Fresno for lunch, then board a motor coach for the 7,000-foot climb to Sequoia National Park. Your destination is remote Wuksachi Lodge® on the park grounds. This afternoon, an expert from the Sequoia Field Institute describes how John Muir found and documented the Giant Forest in 1875, a perfect introduction to the park. Tonight at the lodge, a naturalist guides you through the spectacular constellations that fill the night skies.

Depart Wuksachi Lodge and Sequoia National Park this morning and head over to Fresno via Kings Canyon National Park, arriving at the south entrance to Yosemite National Park late morning. Your visit to Yosemite begins with a film by Ken Burns describing Muir's passion for the Yosemite Valley, and his activism to preserve it for future generations; it is followed by lunch at Wawona® Hotel, an inn that was once a stagecoach stop. An afternoon tour brings you to your home for tonight, The Ahwahnee, a historic masterpiece of stone, timber and soaring stained glass windows in the heart of Yosemite. Dinner tonight is at your leisure.

Depart Yosemite and return to San Francisco, first visiting the Mariposa Museum, then driving across the populous Central Valley with a stop for lunch. Filmed narratives by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan weave together the past seven days of history and nature, with insights you won't get anywhere else. One of the stories you'll hear relates to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a glacial valley that Muir fought unsuccessfully to save; in the 1920s, the federal government allowed its river to be dammed, turning the valley into a reservoir for the city of San Francisco. Today, a campaign continues, joined by the Sierra Club (which Muir founded) to remove the dam and restore the valley to its original state. Mountain parks, Muir argued, are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life... an idea that remains controversial to this day. Arrive late afternoon at The Fairmont San Francisco, a Beaux Arts-style, premier hotel on Nob Hill - it's listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Join us tonight for a farewell cocktail reception and dinner; the setting may be a long way from the Sierra Nevada, but Yosemite can never be left behind (and may be as close as your glass of tap water...).