Yosemite National Park to limit summer visitation due to COVID-19
Yosemite National Park will limit the number of visitors this summer during the peak tourist season due to concerns over COVID-19 by requiring advanced reservations for people who visit the park during the day.
The park’s superintendent, Cicely Muldoon, made the announcement Thursday during a meeting with government and business leaders of the communities surrounding the park. She said the limits are needed due to large crowds that already have been coming to the park in recent weeks, and the fact that there are still cases of COVID-19 spreading in California, and other states and countries where visitors are coming from.
“The basic plan is to protect human health and safety and provide as much access as we can,” Muldoon said.
Under the new rules, advanced reservations will be required for day use visitors who enter the park from May 21 to Sept. 30. Rocky Mountain National Park and Glacier National Park are putting in place similar reservation systems, which have been encouraged for decades by environmental groups but resisted by gateway communities surrounding major parks whose economies depend heavily on tourism.
A similar day-use reservation system was in place last summer to limit Yosemite visitation to 50% of normal during the pandemic. This summer the visitation will range from 50% of normal to 90%, depending on what levels of COVID-19 are found in Mariposa County on the park’s western edges. Currently, with Mariposa in California’s orange tier, Yosemite will allow 70% of normal summer visitation — or about 5,760 vehicles a day.
“We think these numbers will allow people to enjoy the park safely,” Muldoon said.
Reservations can be made at www.recreation. gov beginning at 8 a.m. on April 21. Each day-use reservation is valid for one vehicle and its occupants for three days. Vehicles that arrive at park entrances after May 21 without reservations will not be admitted. Cars passing through the park on Tioga Pass can do that without reservations, but as in the past must pay the $35 admission fee.
Visitors with reservations to stay overnight at hotels and campgrounds located inside the park are not required to make day-use reservations. Nor are people with wilderness and Half Dome permits, or visitors entering the park on the YARTS bus system and on commercial tours.
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