San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Yosemite’s long-shuttered High Sierra Camps to reopen
Yosemite’s historic High Sierra Camps, which have served as a springboard into the national park’s backcountry for generations of Bay Area residents, are slated to reopen this summer after being closed the past five years.
Established a century ago and supplied by pack mules, the five rustic camps are set about 8 miles apart and form a large hiking loop through the granite wilderness east of Yosemite Valley and into Tuolumne Meadows.
Outfitted with tent-cabins, toilets, showers and food service offering three meals a day and freshly baked bread, the camps were designed to open the high country to hikers in a relatively safe and lowcommitment style. They allow a person to spend several nights in the backcountry without the burden of a large pack or the need to pitch a tent, and hikers have praised the communal nature of the experience in which guests dine and bunk together.
The camps, each capable of staying roughly 30 guests per night, are a hot commodity among Bay Area outdoor lovers and families — so much so that reservations are granted via a lottery system.
But the camps have been shuttered for the past five seasons — first due to heavy winter snowfall, then pandemic protocols, and then again last year due to the deep and lasting Sierra snowpack.
Last fall, Yosemite officials and the park’s concessionaire, Yosemite Hospitality, signaled a commitment to reopening the camps this summer by activating the reservation lottery for guided and non-guided loop trips. Reservation holders whose trips were canceled in 2019, the first year the camps were closed, were given priority this summer, according to Chelsie Layman, director of communications for Yosemite Hospitality.
Then this month, following the lottery, the park opened applications for general booking — that is, trip requests for specific camps on available dates between July 5, when the camps open, and Sept. 8, when they close for the season.
“We’re thrilled to make this happen this year,” Layman said. “We’ve been doing a ton of work to open them.”
However, due to lingering issues with water systems at two of the camps, only three of the five will be available this summer: Glen Aulin, May Lake and Sunrise. Merced Lake and Vogelsang, the two camps deepest in the wilderness, will remain closed.
That means that the traditional camping loop will look a little different this summer. Hikers with loop reservations will stay a night at the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, which is currently being repaired following damages from last winter’s snowfall and expected to open before July.
Another change this summer: guided trips will be led by the Yosemite Mountaineering School rather than by park service rangers.
Also, in previous summers visitors have been able to rent pack mules and ride them to the camps. That’s no longer an option, Layman said, in part due to concerns about wear and tear on the wilderness trails between camps and staffing issues. Mules will still be used to help resupply the camps, she said.