Yosemite aims to reopen with reservations, fewer visitors
As National Park Service officials contemplate reopening Yosemite as early as June, they appear intent on implementing new wrinkles to visitation rules: dayuse reservations and a limit on daily car traffic.
In a video call with local stakeholders on May 18, Yosemite officials presented a draft plan for cautiously reopening the park, which closed in March during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. To preserve social distancing mores and restrict humantohuman interactions, the plan emphasizes a phased rollout of services and guest accommodations designed to cater to a limited number of visitors. Officials did not give an exact date when the park would reopen but seemed to be preparing for a day in June.
Most notably, the plan would require visitors to reserve their entry tickets online in advance via Recreation.gov, the portal the park service uses to manage campsite reservations. (Pass holders would have to reserve online as well and pay a reservation fee, though not a park admission fee.) It would also cap the number of dayuse cars allowed into the park at 1,700 per day and the number of cars associated with overnight reservations at 1,900. That would represent an approximately 50% reduction in cars in the park compared to June 2019, when roughly 7,700 cars entered Yosemite each day.
“One of the big concerns that we have is we don’t want to have a crowded situation that doesn’t allow for social distancing,” David Miyako, a management analyst for the park’s Visitor and Resource Protection Division, said during the presentation. “What we don’t want to do is have people line up for hours, get to the gate and tell people, ‘Sorry, we ran out of space today, you have to turn around. Try again tomorrow.’ ”
In recent years, the number of annual visitors to Yosemite, one of the country’s most popular national parks, has hovered between 4 million and 5 million. Most visit during sunny summer weekends when traffic into Yosemite Valley can freeze into gridlock.
About 70% of park visitors travel to Yosemite Valley, the home of iconic, crowdpleasing features like Half Dome, El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls that draw hordes of visitors in close proximity to one another.
The presentation followed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Monday that the state would begin easing some of the restrictions stemming from shelter in place.