Will Yosemite entrance reservations return? Here’s what we know, plus other park changes
Yosemite National Park officials talked about day-use reservations – how they went, and whether they will be returning next year – on Thursday, two weeks after they stopped being required for day visitors to enter the popular park in California.
That update was one of the most anticipated to come out of an hour-long presentation by Yosemite officials during Yosemite Gateway Partners’ fall virtual meeting with members of surrounding Sierra communities.
Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon said she doesn’t yet know whether day-use reservations will return in 2022, not knowing “what’s going to be happening with COVID next summer” – or this winter. The park also required reservations in February 2021, during its popular annual “firefall” phenomenon, where Horsetail Fall can glow orange with the sunset.
Muldoon said that decision was driven by a COVID surge last year, and the park hopes “to be in a much better place for public health this February.” Yosemite will “continue to work with public health officials” about whether it should reinstate entrance reservations in February 2022.
Yosemite first implemented them in 2020 to reduce visitation and the spread of COVID-19. This year, that reservation system ended Oct. 1, despite a high number of COVID cases and deaths in the region, particularly the neighboring central San Joaquin Valley. Yosemite has not shared its number of COVID-19 cases. Those numbers are included in county health totals.
“It’s a long way from perfect, we know,” Muldoon said of Yosemite’s day-use reservation system. “We do appreciate the suggested changes that made it work a little better this year. ... We’re going to continue to look at that system and make it better if we have to put one in place.”
Some of the changes to that system this year: Non-locals were allowed to drive through the park without a reservation, if heading to a destination on the other side; entrance passes were valid for three, instead of the normal seven, consecutive days; people no longer had to arrive on the first day of a reservation; and more passes were issued on weekdays.
Yosemite officials also talked about a new wilderness permit system for backpackers; when some park services are expected to return; and shared a brief overview of ongoing Yosemite projects.
How busy was it, including in Yosemite Valley?
Muldoon said a new pilot program with the Federal Highway Administration this year was successful in alleviating traffic congestion in Yosemite Valley by reconfiguring the flow of traffic.
Once the changes were in place, Muldoon said she didn’t see any traffic jams, which is “extremely rare,” especially on weekends. The park is looking to bring that program back next summer.
There were “very long delays” at park entrance stations, however, what officials attributed in large part to the day-use reservation system. After day-use reservations ended Oct. 1, Yosemite officials described the park as still busy but manageable.
There were around 6,000 vehicles a day in Yosemite between the end of May and early August, when the spread of COVID-19 in the area was described as relatively minimal, according to a chart presented Thursday by Nicole Athearn, a Yosemite division chief.
After that, until the end of September, the number of daily vehicles in Yosemite dropped to somewhere between roughly 4,000 and 5,000, the chart shows, when COVID spread was described as “substantial.”
That’s not too far below visitation levels during a normal Yosemite year. The highest target number of vehicles in the park in 2021 – 6,480 a day – was 90% of the average number of daily cars in June 2019 , prior to the pandemic, Yosemite data shows.
Athearn said the number of day-use passes were adjusted this year to allow for more consistent visitation throughout the week, instead of much larger spikes in visitation on the weekends, like what happened last year.
What’s closed and coming back? Free shuttle buses on the list
The park’s concessionaire, Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of Aramark, is “currently targeting December for shuttle buses resuming service” in Yosemite, Muldoon said.
Yosemite park tours and its free shuttle buses have not been operating this year due to lack of staffing. Officials said shared housing for seasonal employees is much lower than usual to keep employees safer during the pandemic.
Aramark tried to evict its bus drivers and transportation workers in the spring of 2020.
Yosemite hotels and lodges are open, but some restaurants and services remain closed or open with modifications. The Wawona Hotel is scheduled to close for the season Nov. 29.
The Curry Village Ice Rink for ice skating should open Nov. 12. Badger Pass Ski Area should have normal operations this winter, and is scheduled to open Dec. 17, conditions permitting.
Yosemite’s High Sierra Camps should reopen in the summer of 2022. There is a lottery for those reservations, open until Oct. 31. Park officials said they are considering not opening the Tuolumne Meadows Store next year.
New way to get Yosemite wilderness permits
Wilderness permits, needed for backpackers trekking into Yosemite’s high Sierra, will soon be issued by recreation.gov instead of Yosemite Conservancy, which has operated that reservation system for over 25 years, said Jeff Webb, the park’s wilderness manager who is transitioning to a Yosemite deputy chief this month.
Yosemite already uses recreation.gov for some reservations, including campgrounds, Half Dome permits, and previously, the day-use ticketed entry passes. A number of other federal parks and forests have also moved their wilderness permits to recreation.gov, which has 21 million users.
“Two percent of our national lands are now wilderness,” Webb said, “and in Yosemite, that’s well over 90%, so most of the park is wilderness.”
The new page for Yosemite wilderness permits will be up Oct. 21 but not yet active, going live on Nov. 14.
At that time, Webb said a lottery will open for trips in early May. A few days later, that lottery will close, and whatever isn’t taken (of the 60% that can be reserved early) will be available for advance registration.
Webb said there will be three ways to get a wilderness permit in Yosemite:
- In a lottery that will open up for one week, six months in advance of a trip.
- Advance registration, “available after the close of the lottery, up until seven days before wilderness entry.”
- Walk-up reservations at wilderness permit stations in Yosemite. Forty percent of wilderness permits will be kept for walk-ups, and whatever is canceled or leftover from advance registration.
Permits in all three cases are $10, and $5 per person – prices Webb described as still low, and lower than some others in the area.
There’s increasing interest for getting into the wilderness. Yosemite issues upwards of 25,000 wilderness permits each year from May to November, with the three people on average per trip, Webb said, so around 100,000 people yearly who normally go on two to four-day backpack trips. That’s an increase from around 5,000 wilderness permits a year in the early and mid 1990s, he said.
“The wilderness is basically full,” Webb said, “and so we really need the permit system more than ever to manage who’s out there and for how long.”
Some of that wilderness burned in over 60 Yosemite wildfires this year, Muldoon said – 50 of which were lightning-caused and suppressed “a little more aggressively than usual” because of wildfire issues nationwide and fewer firefighting resources this year.
Expect ongoing work and closures for park projects and roads
Muldoon also shared a brief update about park projects, cautioning Yosemite visitors to be prepared for another busy year in 2022.
Some of the Yosemite projects mentioned:
- Road work: Glacier Point Road improvements will close that road in 2022, but “winter operations will remain open as usual,” with access to Badger Pass Ski Area planned through March. Glacier Point Road will be open, with construction delays, in 2023. Visitors should also expect continued delays along Tioga Road from ongoing construction work there.
- Campground closures: Tuolumne Meadows Campground will be closed until at least 2024 for a rehabilitation project, and Crane Flat and Bridalveil Creek campgrounds will be closed until 2023.
- Yosemite Valley projects: In 2022, that will include ongoing construction in the Bridalveil Fall area, work on a new Welcome Center, and the paving of a parking lot.
- Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias: Damaged during a destructive wind event in January, repairs there should be completed and the grove fully reopened by the summer.
This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Will Yosemite entrance reservations return? Here’s what we know, plus other park changes."
