Yosemite may limit visitors due to construction
Concerned about nightmarish traffic jams at Yosemite National Park from more than half a dozen major new construction projects, park leaders are drawing up plans that could limit the number of visitors this summer by requiring reservations for day visits.
“This summer is going to be a crazy construction season in Yosemite like you have never seen before,” Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon told a group of local elected officials and tourism leaders at a meeting late last week. “Bring your hard hats.”
Many of the projects — major road repairs and extensive upgrades to aging campgrounds — have been on the park’s wish list for decades. But funding is available
now because Congress passed a landmark law in 2020, the Great American Outdoors Act, providing billions for repairs and upgrades at America’s national parks.
Muldoon told the Yosemite Gateway Partnership that
parks planners will know the details of a new reservation system in a few weeks.
“What we want to do is accommodate as many people as we can without causing any gridlock in the valley and other places in the park,” she said.
Park spokesman Scott Gediman said Thursday that park officials are studying how many visitors should be allowed, traffic and parking needs and trying to figure out how COVID trends will affect the famed Sierra Nevada park in the coming months.
During the last two summers, COVID concerns forced the park for the first time in Yosemite’s 157-yearhistory to require day visitors to make online reservations. Some people were turned away at the gates on days when all the reservations were filled.
In 2020, Yosemite kept visitor numbers to about 50% of historic averages during the first year of the pandemic. Last year, they ranged from 50% to 80% depending on the month and the severity of COVID cases. The system ended in October, and reservations are currently not required to enter the park.
But this summer, as the omicron variant is expected to wane, the concern is more over projects than pandemic.
Construction crews will be closing the Glacier Point Road all year to rebuild the popular route through Yosemite’s high country. The current road was first constructed in 1936, replacing a wagon trail that dated back to 1882. The $42 million project to replace 10 miles of pavement from Badger Pass to Glacier Point, along with culverts, trail head parking and retaining walls, is expected to force more motorists to remain in Yosemite Valley, which on weekends and holidays already can become gridlocked.
Meanwhile, crews also will be building a new welcome center in Yosemite Valley, which will cause the temporary removal of 300 parking spaces. The center will be built adjacent to the Village Store, in a 3,000-squarefoot building that formerly housed the Yosemite Village Sport Shop. As part of the $10 million project, an outdoor plaza also will be constructed with new restrooms, paths and signs. The welcome center will feature rangers for answering questions, information kiosks, touchscreens, maps, guidebooks and other information for visitors.
But that’s not all.
Parks officials will be closing several major campgrounds this summer for long-delayed upgrades, including Crane Flat, Tuolumne Meadows and Bridalveil Creek, where aging water systems, restrooms and other facilities dating back to the 1950s and 1960s will be replaced.