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A tourist stands in front of an overlook near Yosemite Valley during a sunrise in mid-June in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n
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Tourists wait at the Yosemite Falls bus stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have taken up climbing and gone up El Capitan just to escape the people,\u201d Dollinger said, referencing Yosemite\u2019s famous rock wall, \u201cbut I\u2019m just a creative director.\u201d<\/p>\n
This summer, Yosemite is seeing a significant uptick in visitation, driven by the park\u2019s internationally known splendor, its popularity on social media and a lack of its politicized reservation system. As droves of tourists flock to Yosemite, it raises the question: Is it still possible to have a fun time there despite the crowds? <\/p>\n
Hopefully, yes, but that answer comes with a few heavy asterisks. Park-goers and local business owners say it\u2019s crucial for those venturing into Yosemite this summer to plan their excursions outside peak times to avoid the worst of the crowds, and even then, pack their patience. The best-laid plans can still result in visitors facing significant lines at the park\u2019s gate and restaurants, crowded hiking trails and a relentless search for parking.<\/p>\n
By the end of June, Yosemite had seen at least 183,000 more visitors than last year, according to preliminary park visitor data<\/a>. Just over 2 million people visited the park by the end of June, a 10% increase compared with last year\u2019s visitation data.<\/p>\n Crowds pose for photos on the Mist Trail.<\/p>\n The increase in visitors is, in part, because the National Park Service is not using a timed-entry reservation system this year. <\/p>\n The National Park Service announced<\/a> in February \u2014 after the agency under the Biden administration studied<\/a> extensively<\/a> how to best implement a reservation system \u2014 that officials would instead use \u201ctargeted management.\u201d This has included sending congestion alerts to visitors\u2019 mobile phones and encouraging visitors to venture outside the valley, as it represents only a fraction of its almost 1,200 square miles of parkland. <\/p>\n When asked how the agency planned to address overcrowding in Yosemite this summer, a National Park Service spokesperson who declined to give their name to The Times said in an emailed statement that temporary traffic delays can occur during peak times but aren\u2019t evidence of \u201coperational failure.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThey reflect the reality of managing one of the nation\u2019s most visited national parks while keeping visitors safe and protecting park resources,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cClaims of widespread \u2018overcrowding\u2019 are not an accurate characterization of current park operations. Visitors have benefitted [sic] from expanded access for months now, and we are seeing operational efficiency from managing traffic only when and where necessary, rather than blanketing the park with restrictions for entire seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Dozens of tourists hike their way up the Mist Trail in mid-June, one of the more popular trails in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n Visitors like Dollinger say this new approach is not working. <\/p>\n \u201cAfter we hiked for about three hours, we met a couple from Japan, and when I talked to them they were almost in tears,\u201d said Dollinger, who has visited other state and national parks in California. \u201cThey saved for five years to do this trip, flew to San Francisco from Tokyo, stayed in San Francisco and hired a car, and went to the park for five days, which I can only describe as hell.\u201d<\/p>\n Not every Yosemite visitor that The Times spoke to for this story had as bad of a time as Dollinger, but no one disputed crowds being an issue. <\/p>\n Chidumebi Ajaero, who lives in L.A., said he was \u201cvery concerned\u201d when he and his friends left for their trip in mid-April over how crowded the park would be.<\/p>\n It was Ajaero\u2019s first time to visit Yosemite after moving to California about 2\u00bd years ago from Houston. He has been to other national parks and said he knows they can get \u201cquite chaotic\u201d when busy.<\/p>\n Tents set up in Upper Pines Campground on a June weekend in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n Ajaero and his friends arrived in Yosemite on a Friday afternoon and were surprised to find there was no line to enter the Big Oak Flat entrance.<\/p>\n They set their campsite up at Upper Pines, a campground in the valley, and headed out early on the Mist Trail<\/a>, which takes hikers to Vernal and Nevada falls via its large stone steps. There were a considerable amount of people on the trail with them, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not until you get to the waterfall itself and you have the steps, and everybody is taking pictures,\u201d Ajaero said. \u201cThere\u2019s actually a line to move up. You\u2019re just waiting for your turn to step up\u201d to capture the waterfall.<\/p>\n Ajaero said he\u2019s glad he went before Memorial Day, when visitation started to increase more significantly.<\/p>\n But because of how curated Yosemite Valley is, with a grocery store, souvenir shops and restaurants, Ajaero said it felt more like an amusement park than his trips to Joshua Tree National Park, where visitors are far more on their own.<\/p>\n Hikers walk on a boardwalk designed to prevent erosion in sensitive meadows.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t love it as much as the other because of the commercialized feeling of it, and just the fact it never felt you were alone in Yosemite,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s too much going on.\u201d<\/p>\n How developed Yosemite should be for its visitors has been a debate since the park\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n Michael W. Childers, author of \u201cThe Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park\u201d (Nebraska<\/a>), said people often use the metaphor of not wanting to turn the park into Disneyland, but a more apt comparison is how closely Yosemite resembles a resort. <\/p>\n Concessionaires have been in Yosemite since its beginnings, as the federal government didn\u2019t have the money to construct its own amenities in the 1850s, he said. Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of hospitality giant Aramark, manages much of Yosemite\u2019s lodging, dining and activities (including the park\u2019s Starbucks inside the valley). <\/p>\n Childers, an associate professor of history at Colorado State University, said his concern is that, since the late 1970s, conservative intellectuals have pushed to privatize the park even further. <\/p>\n He said the chaos being created by the Trump administration through cutting park staff and ending the reservation system is \u201cvery intentional\u201d in the quest to argue the only way to manage the park is to privatize Yosemite. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you privatize the entirety of a national park, that means that your only one measuring stick is profit, and arguably, national parks are not solely designed for profit,\u201d said Childers, an environmental historian of the American West. \u201cThey\u2019re for experience. They\u2019re for democracy. They\u2019re for preservation of natural resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Vehicles stop to pay the fee at the El Portal entrance gate.<\/p>\n Vehicles line the road near El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n One of park officials\u2019 most significant management challenges started when tourists began entering Yosemite by automobile. Since 1913, people could enter in a personal vehicle, but visitation numbers remained reasonable until 1926 when the \u201cAll Year Highway,\u201d a segment of the 140 Highway, opened. <\/p>\n This new thoroughfare created an easy and direct route to reach the park by car that avoided steep mountain roads, according to park history. The road\u2019s opening resulted in a near doubling of total cars visiting the park in just one year, park staff said in an Instagram post<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThe summer of 1927 has clearly demonstrated that parking is one of the most urgent, menacing problems of the entire Yosemite Valley,\u201d said Don Tresidder, president of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., that year, according to the park. <\/p>\n And has thus remained for 100 years.<\/p>\n The first attempt in recent years to get a handle on car traffic was the reservation system, implemented initially to spread guests out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but rolled out in 2021, 2022 and 2024 as the park service tested how to best employ it to cut down on traffic and help more visitors enjoy the park. <\/p>\n \u201cOver the past decade, many parks have seen significant increases in visitation and crowding in popular areas, especially during peak seasons,\u201d the agency wrote in 2024 as it sought public comments on park management. \u201cIn some parks, the level of demand is exceeding the capacity for which infrastructure was designed or is outpacing the National Park Service\u2019s ability to sustainably support visitation.\u201d<\/p>\n The park service planned to use visitor feedback and research to guide how reservations would be rolled out in 2025. Environmental and park advocates argued for the reservation system, saying that it not only protected the wildlife and land, but also that it was popular<\/a> among guests.<\/p>\n But when Trump started his second term in office, not only did park management strategy change<\/a>, so did the way the federal government viewed the park service. Hundreds of park workers were laid off, although some<\/a> got their jobs back. Others took buyouts, and overall there was a 24% decline in permanent workers, according to<\/a> the National Parks Conservation Assn.<\/p>\n One of the reservation system\u2019s biggest critics is Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), who said the system was decimating the economies of local gateway communities, the term used for the small mountain towns around Yosemite. <\/p>\n Parking lots are filled to capacity during peak hours, creating traffic congestion in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not to say that crowding in the valley hasn\u2019t been a big problem, but the solution is better management and more capacity, not restricting access,\u201d McClintock said<\/a> on the House floor in June, noting the park had more parking, rooms and campsites before the 1997 flood<\/a> destroyed infrastructure that he said wasn\u2019t replaced.<\/p>\n Under the timed-entry system, visitors could still enter the park without a reservation if they arrived early \u2014 before 6 a.m. in 2021 and 2022 and 5 a.m. in 2024 \u2014 or after 4 p.m., and would be required to pay an entry fee for a three-day pass allowing them to reenter outside of peak hours. <\/p>\n But entering the park early or late in the day still wasn\u2019t doable for everyone, including Ronny Shields, a father of two children from Ventura.<\/p>\n Shields, a lifelong Southern California resident, struggled to book a reservation when Yosemite implemented the system until he finally snagged one in 2024. His family had a great time and was eager to return.<\/p>\n In early June, Shields, his wife and kids, ages 4 and 7, made the trek back to Yosemite, staying outside the park at Tenaya at Yosemite<\/a> in Fish Camp. Shields had researched and found information online suggesting the nearby southern<\/a> entrance was less crowded. <\/p>\n His family arrived on a Saturday afternoon and entered the park without a wait. They found the valley was quieter than they\u2019d ever seen it as people left. <\/p>\n Tourists stand in a meadow with a perfect view of Yosemite Falls.<\/p>\n For the rest of their trip, they entered the park before 8 a.m. or after 3 p.m., except for one day when they entered later in the morning and waited 40 minutes to enter. The other times, they found no wait. <\/p>\n Once inside the park before 8 a.m., their first stop was the Bridalveil Fall Trail, a short trek<\/a> that takes visitors right to the base of the thundering cascade. When Shields and his family left the trail about 9:30 a.m., they noticed other guests couldn\u2019t find parking. <\/p>\n They faced the same problem after they went to get food and then tried to park near the Lower Yosemite Falls trailhead<\/a>. After 20 minutes, they found a spot \u2014 and joined the masses.<\/p>\n The trail \u201cdoesn\u2019t feel like a hike \u2014 it feels like you\u2019re in a crowded mall, but I think that\u2019s the nature of the beast because it\u2019s very short and very scenic,\u201d Shields said. <\/p>\n Comparing his two visits to Yosemite, Shields said he preferred not having to deal with the reservation system, but that came with some caveats. He noticed far more visitors, although he\u2019d expected even more. He saw more trash, several guests going off trail and trampling plant life, and far fewer park rangers to tell them to stop. <\/p>\n He said he didn\u2019t see any park staff in the outdoor areas, and instead, he and his wife made sure to take their kids into the park\u2019s buildings so they could speak to the rangers.<\/p>\n Tourists swim and play in the Merced River in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice for the kids to be able to ask questions and learn from people that love it,\u201d Shields said. \u201cEven I learned something.\u201d <\/p>\n Jennifer Liu, a Moreno Valley resident, was at the park the same time frame as the Shields family and was able to mostly avoid the crowds on her backpacking trip through the park\u2019s backcountry.<\/p>\n Liu meandered through the park using a few different trails, including the Sunrise Lakes<\/a> route, to reach her ultimate destination: Half Dome on her birthday. She left her backcountry campsite about 4:30 a.m. to reach Half Dome by 6 a.m., catching the sunrise at 8,800-feet elevation from the granite monolith. <\/p>\n \u201cI got lucky \u2014 the clouds cleared out and there was a nice sunrise,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Not in a hurry, Liu stayed at the top for four hours. Her fellow hikers sang her happy birthday, and she witnessed a couple get engaged. <\/p>\n Sunset over the Half Dome lookout in Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n \u201cBy 10, when I headed back down, that\u2019s when the crowd was starting to pick up,\u201d Liu said, adding that she was grateful there was still space to navigate the dome\u2019s cable system without being rushed by others.<\/p>\n As a means of crowd control, the National Park Service has attempted to funnel people out of the valley, where the majority of tourists spend their time and into its less frequented locations. <\/p>\n Park officials have tried to rebrand Hetch Hetchy, a massive reservoir surrounded by glacier-carved rock walls, by claiming that \u201cmany have compared Hetch Hetchy\u2019s grandeur to the more well-known Yosemite Valley,\u201d according to a recent update on the park\u2019s website. (Previous versions of the Hetch Hetchy page made no such claim, according to archived versions of the website viewed through the Internet Archive.)<\/p>\n The park service doesn\u2019t cite a source for such claims. California naturalist John Muir compared<\/a> the two valleys\u2019 beauties, but that was before Hetch Hetchy Valley was transformed by the O\u2019Shaughnessy Dam into a massive reservoir.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn Muir lost the fight over Hetch Hetchy, and the dam was built. And people who live in San Francisco today drink the water of Hetch Hetchy,\u201d historian William Cronon said<\/a> in the Ken Burns national parks documentary. \u201cMuir died feeling that he\u2019d been defeated by that, and that was a great tragedy at the end of his life.\u201d <\/p>\n Still, Hetch Hetchy has long been whispered among Yosemite regulars as a place to find a little quiet. <\/p>\n That\u2019s changed too. <\/p>\n An empty road under El Capitan in Yosemite Valley National Park.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to have these secret spots we could tell people about,\u201d said Elisabeth Barton, owner of Yosemite Basecamp in Groveland, which offers lodging, trips by local outfitters, gear and more. \u201c\u2018Go to Hetch Hetchy,\u2019 you\u2019d say quietly and look over your shoulder. \u2018Go to this waterfall\u2019 or \u2018Do this hike.\u2019 … One of the things we\u2019re noticing is, very quickly on a weekend, [the park] is sending out that alert that Hetch Hetchy is full or that Hetch Hetchy has \u2018extreme visitation.\u2019 It\u2019s weird.\u201d <\/p>\n Barton, whose company runs a visitor center in downtown Groveland, said there\u2019s not much she and her team can recommend for people coming Thursday through Sunday into the park. It will be crowded regardless. <\/p>\n On a recent Saturday, Barton met a hiker who was devastated he couldn\u2019t easily enter the valley without dealing with crowds. Barton let him in on a less popular trip that involved a great swimming hole, fish tacos at Whoa Nellie Deli<\/a>, an adventure around Mono Lake and a drive through a stunning mountain pass. She recommended that he take a long way to reenter the park, enabling him to see the valley at a time he\u2019d miss the crowds. <\/p>\n He called her a week later and told her to never recommend that to anyone ever again. He\u2019d had a great day until he tried to reenter the park and instead waited four hours at the Tioga Pass in a line that stretched for miles. \u201cYou\u2019re right, it was beautiful,\u201d he told her, \u201cbut to what end?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI just wasn\u2019t prepared for that,\u201d Barton said. \u201cIt just broke me.\u201d <\/p>\n Even sacred sites \u2014 with signage directing visitors away from the area \u2014 have been trampled by crowds. <\/p>\n The American Indian Council of Mariposa County<\/a>, also known as the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, fought for decades to establish Wahhoga Village, which is an ancient village site and the last place that Indigenous people lived in Yosemite Valley before being driven out by the National Park Service.<\/p>\n Today, Wahhoga Village<\/a> includes a traditional roundhouse, traditional cedar bark houses known as umachas<\/a> and the only cabin<\/a> that the park service didn\u2019t burn when it evicted the remaining families from the site in 1969. <\/p>\n Wahhoga is not listed on Yosemite maps and is not intended to be used by those who aren\u2019t either authorized or invited by the council to be there, said Deborah Tucker, a council member whose father advocated for years for Wahhoga.<\/p>\n But, Tucker said, in recent weeks, tourists have been found picnicking in the site. Hikers were tromping right through the middle of the village, led by a user-generated route on a popular outdoors adventure app, she said. <\/p>\n And while there, someone peed all over the village\u2019s grinding stones, which are used for processing acorns into flour, along with other foods, said Tucker, whose father is Paiute and Shoshone and her mother was Choinumni, a branch of Yokut, tribes indigenous to the region. <\/p>\n Tourist beat the heat and float on tubes in a river in Yosemite National Park. <\/p>\n Under the current administration, \u201cit\u2019s a free-for-all,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cYou can come up there and do what you want, park where you want and you\u2019re disrupting not just sacred sites but other park sites that the park service has [established],\u201d leading to littering and other pollution, noise that harms the birds and speeding cars that threaten the safety of bears and other wildlife. <\/p>\n Tucker said because the current administration seems fixated on money over conservation, she hopes that when people visit the park this summer, they will at least hold themselves accountable, showing respect for the land and its inhabitants.<\/p>\n \u201cClean up after yourself, maybe clean up after one another, and don\u2019t take anything home with you that you didn\u2019t bring,\u201d Tucker said when asked what she\u2019d say to the park\u2019s visitors. \u201cEnjoy that experience, and [you\u2019re] welcome to come back again.\u201d<\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784630480_867_.jpeg\")
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