Yosemite settles on day to reopen
SAN JOSE, Calif. _ After being closed for more than two months because of the coronavirus pandemic, Yosemite National Park is ready to reopen as soon as June 10 or 11, but the plan hinges on state health officials granting approval for campsites and hotels to reopen in the surrounding communities to handle many of the overnight visitors.
A June 1 letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials from the leaders of Mariposa, Mono, Tuolumne and Madera counties urges approval, and says that under a plan developed by park officials, Yosemite is prepared to reopen “on or about June 11.”
The park, an international tourist destination renowned for its massive water falls, granite rock walls and Sierra forests, closed March 20. The first major step to welcoming back visitors begins Friday, when parks officials will allow people with overnight wilderness backpacking permits and permits to climb Half Dome, to enter the park.
“We have been doing our best to incrementally increase access to the park,” said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. “Employees are coming back to work. Everybody is excited. Of course, our paramount concern is the safety of our visitors and employees, but we have everything from physical signs to enhanced cleaning. We are taking as many precautions as possible to prepare for it.”
Hotels, restaurants and other facilities in Yosemite will not be open Friday when the first few visitors with wilderness permits and Half Dome permits arrive.
“There will be no commercial services,” Gediman said. “We are asking anybody with one of these permits to bring all of their food, their beverages, their supplies, and a full tank of gas.”
Meanwhile, another iconic Sierra Nevada destination, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, is scheduled to open Thursday, although campgrounds and the visitor center there will be closed.
Gediman said Yosemite workers began putting up the cables on Half Dome Tuesday. The cables allow hikers to more safely scale the sheer granite slope to the top of the famed monolith, a strenuous hike that can take 12 hours or more round-trip from the Yosemite Valley floor. Information about obtaining permits for overnight backpacking in Yosemite’s wilderness back country, or for day-hiking Half Dome are available at the parks’s website.
Anyone arriving at the park without a wilderness permit or Half Dome permit in the next few days will not be allowed to enter, Gediman said.
He did not offer specifics about when the wider park will open. Parks officials have drawn up a plan and shared it with local county supervisors and business leaders that will require all day-use visitors to obtain reservations online first, with the number of visitors limited to 50% of the park’s usual capacity to help social distancing to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
That plan also calls for not running shuttle buses in Yosemite Valley. The Ahwahnee Hotel and Yosemite Valley Lodge would be open, along with two campgrounds, North Pines and Upper Pines. Trails and parking lots also would be open.
But the exact opening date has been unclear for weeks.
Aramark, the park’s concession company, has posted on its website that preexisting reservations for hotels and tours in the park are canceled, with full refunds, through June 10.
County supervisors who have been briefed on the plans say they have been meeting weekly with each other and parks officials, and in recent days have met with Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health.
They are asking Angell and Newsom to relax rules that currently only allow essential workers such as doctors to stay at local hotels, and to issue guidelines to reopen campgrounds. Already, they say, crowds have arrived since Easter on sunny weekends, and with few places to stay, have camped illegally, left trash and even caused several small fires in counties around Yosemite.
“We need to get campgrounds open and we need to get our hotels running so that when the park opens we can handle it. The people are coming anyway,” said Kevin Cann, chairman of the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors.