It’s hard to get a summer campsite in Yosemite Valley. A new system might make it easier
It’s hard to get a summer campsite in Yosemite Valley. Yosemite National Park hopes to at least make the reservation process a little less intense for many by trying something new.
The popular park in California announced on Friday that it will start a new reservation system, where winners of a lottery get first dibs at making summer 2022 campsite reservations at North Pines Campground.
The idea is to give lottery winners a chance to make reservations in a less competitive environment during an early access window, where fewer people are online at the same time trying to grab the same campsite.
North Pines is a coveted campground in Yosemite Valley along the Merced River near the Mirror Lake trailhead. Most Yosemite campgrounds are full from April through September. The demand far exceeds availability in Yosemite Valley.
“On the busiest on-sale dates, reservations sell out in minutes,” Yosemite officials wrote in announcing the new system. “Hopeful campers take days off work and recruit family and friends to simultaneously try to make any possible reservation. Still, many are unsuccessful year after year, causing frustration, disappointment, and feeling the system is flawed and unfair.”
How the North Pines Campground lottery system will work
The North Pines lottery application period will be open Jan. 18 through Feb. 6 via recreation.gov. Winners will be chosen Feb. 10 and then be able to make reservations from Feb. 18 through March 10 for arrival dates at North Pines between July 21 and Sept. 14.
Recreation.gov will randomly select 640 lottery applicants as winners. Any remaining availability at North Pines between July 21 and Sept. 14 will become available on the usual on-sale dates (five months in advance, on the 15th of the month). It’s unclear how many campsites might still be left then. North Pines has around 80 campsites.
Yosemite officials said the North Pines Campground reservation page on recreation.gov will start including the lottery details in a few weeks. There’s a non-refundable $10 fee to enter the lottery, and if you make a reservation, the cost is $36 a night.
North Pines is closed for the season and scheduled to reopen in mid-April.
Yosemite officials said they regularly receive complaints from visitors who were unsuccessful trying to get a campground reservation, who say they missed out “because they are not computer savvy, their computers or internet connection are not fast enough, or that bots (automated computer systems) got all the reservations, or that some users receive preferential treatment.
“The early access lottery pilot is an attempt to address these concerns. ... While the lottery does not guarantee your desired dates or campsite will be available, it limits the number of users competing simultaneously for campsites during peak-season dates.”
More details about the new North Pines pilot lottery system are available on Yosemite’s website. Yosemite officials said the system might later be expanded to other campgrounds, depending on how it goes this year at North Pines.
More Yosemite National Park camping information
The four campgrounds in Yosemite Valley require reservations, including at Camp 4, which has a daily lottery for next-day reservations.
Outside of Yosemite Valley, Tuolumne Meadows, Bridalveil Creek and Crane Flat campgrounds will be closed in 2022 for rehabilitation. Tuolumne Meadows Campground might stay closed until 2025, park officials said.
There are six other Yosemite campgrounds. Five of those are first-come, first-served campgrounds along Tioga Road, which were closed in 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and Wawona Campground in Wawona, which took a limited number of reservations this year due to plumbing work there.
Yosemite’s High Sierra Camps are scheduled to reopen in the summer of 2022, and there’s also a new page for Yosemite wilderness permits for backpackers.
Day-use reservations are no longer needed to enter Yosemite National Park, those ended earlier this fall. Yosemite’s superintendent said in October that it’s not yet known if day-use reservations will return in 2022, which depends on the COVID-19 pandemic. Day-use reservations weren’t needed for visitors with a camping or lodging reservation within the park.
This story was originally published December 4, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "It’s hard to get a summer campsite in Yosemite Valley. A new system might make it easier."
