Smart Meetings

Bordering Calaveras County to the east is Tuolumne County, home to several stunning lodging and meeting facilities. In historic Groveland is the Evergreen Lodge (evergreenlodge.com), bordering Yosemite. Recently expanded and modernized, the Evergreen lodge now has 65 furnished cabins among the pine trees, 5,000 feet of indoor meeting space and 5,000 feet of outdoor event space.

The Groveland Hotel (groveland.com), 23 miles west of Yosemite, has 17 spacious European-inspired guest rooms. Its facilities can accommodate 80 people in a 1,073-square-foot Victorian courtyard and 15 people in its 210-square-foot conference room. There’s free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel and the fresh innkeeper’s breakfast buffet is included with accommodations. There’s also concierge service for golf, tennis, swimming, white-water rafting and hiking. The hotel’s restaurant, the Victorian Room, a Wine Spectator "Award of Excellence" recipient, offers more than 500 wines.

Perhaps the most notable Yosemite-area property is the legendary AAA Four Diamond Ahwahnee Hotel (webportal.com/ahwahnee). A member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Hotels of America (nationaltrust.org), it’s been open since 1927 and is also a National Historical Landmark. Views from different parts of the property include magnificent Half Dome, Glacier Point and Yosemite Falls. The Ahwahnee’s 123 guest accommodations, as well as the hotel’s striking public spaces, are accented with Native American art. The décor here is also notable for its impressive beamed ceilings and its blend of Art Deco, Middle Eastern and Arts & Crafts influences. Yet despite its historical relevance, the Ahwahnee has all of today’s modern conveniences: Wi-Fi connectivity is available throughout the hotel and there are six state-of-the-art meeting rooms accommodating up to 150 guests. The hotel’s largest room, the 1,344-square-foot Tudor Lounge, can seat 120. If you plan to locate at the Ahwahnee in the summer, however, make reservations far in advance; the Ahwahnee is almost always sold out.

Some interesting out-of-the-norm things to do as a group in Tuolumne County include a visit to Railtown 1897 State Historic Park (in Jamestown; csrmf.org/railtown), or Columbia State Historic Park (three miles north of Sonora; parks.ca.gov). There’s also Chinese Camp (yosemitegold.com/yosemite/chinesecamp), now effectively a ghost town but formerly an important mining town.

South of Tuolumne County is Mariposa County, home to Fish Camp and the AAA Four Diamond-awarded Tenaya Lodge (tenayalodge.com) at Yosemite. Set on 35 acres bordering the Sierra National Forest and two miles from Yosemite’s south entrance, the 244-room lodge remains consistent with its surroundings by providing woodsy but elegant décor. The lodge offers 9,000 square feet of function space in the form of nine conference rooms. The 6,000-square foot Grand Ballroom is graced with floor-to-ceiling windows. Tenaya Lodge offers exceptional team-building programs, including narrated sightseeing tours through Yosemite.

Southernmost in Gold Country is Madera County and the Pines Resort & Conference Center on Bass Lake (basslake.com). An hour northeast of Fresno and 14 miles from Yosemite, the Pines Resort maintains 84 two-story chalets (with private decks with picnic tables) as well as 20 suites overlooking Bass Lake. The Pines’ conference center consists of seven distinct meeting spaces, plus the outdoor 2,000-square-foot Gazebo Deck with space for 300 people. In addition, there’s high-speed Internet access throughout the resort. Ducey’s on the Lake, the resort’s 120-seat restaurant, also overlooks the lake and is a great place for group dining (basslake.com).

Wherever a meeting or event takes place in the Yosemite area of California’s Gold Country, there’s almost no going wrong. Attendees will know why all those ‘49-ers shouted so long ago “There’s gold in them thar hills!” There still is.

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Getting There

Fresno Yosemite International (FYI; fresno.gov/DiscoverFresno/Airports/) is the closest airport to Tuolumne County and Yosemite.

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Not To Be Missed

Groveland’s Iron Door Saloon - iron-door-saloon.com

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