The model was conceived, designed, constructed and painted by Mark J. Wilson. The valley is depicted the day after a late season snowfall down to 7,000 feet, in April or May. It is extremely accurate and includes foliage, all roads, trails, bridges and buildings.

It took 500 hours to construct the model, the time having been spread out over a period of one and one half years. It was completed in 1993.

The model consists of wood, Celuclay ® and wire and has a protective acrylic top and was painted with acrylic paint. There are approximately 120,000 "trees" on the model. The trees are a mixture of green paint and modeling paste and were extruded one-by-one with a cake-icing decorator.

There is a 1-1/2 to 1 vertical exaggeration. The horizontal scale is 6 inches = 1 mile. The vertical scale is 9 inches = 1 mile. The horizontal scale can also be expressed as 1:10,560 which means that if you multiplied the distance between any two features of the model times 10,560 they would be as far apart from each other as they would be in the real valley.

Mark J. Wilson was born in 1957 in Bakersfield, California and has lived there for the majority of his life. In addition to creating the Yosemite Valley model he has been a photographer since the age of 16 and has been in the motion picture industry for the last several years in varying capacities including producer, director, director of photography and screenwriter.

To learn more, click on: ABOUT YOSEMITE VALLEY

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Contact us at: 661-324-6350

Address: 2018 Chester Ave.
Bakersfield, CA 93301

Web Master: Sherry Pauley