Yosemite

Hi,
Very excited to visit Yosemite this summer in our TM. I have booked an RV Park very close to Y ( Yosemite Lakes) just in case I can't get Yosemite Valley try as I might. I hear the reservations are bought and sold on ebay so they are hard to come by.
Anywho, any stories, recommendations? We're in a 2619. Any preferences for Upper, Lower, North Pines? We're travelling w/ another family and kids.

Happy Trails,
Kristin

[B_and_D]

We've stayed in Lower Pines twice in Space 35. It's not the best spot there, but it is right next to the bathroom. Only downside for us was being next to a big RV spot (#36), so we had neighbors running their generator for hours on end and late at night sometimes. Not everyone obeys the rules.

The spots in Lower Pines right by the river are nice. The spots at the far side of the campground away from the river were pretty muddy when we stayed there in June.

To get a reservation, you should be online or on the phone (preferably both) at the first moment reservations become available. Way before this, check out all the sites online that you could fit into and write them down. I think if you try to get the smallest spot you can fit into (with a bit of margin for error), you have a better chance of getting the reservation. The biggest sites seem to go first. The nicest sites go quickly too. If you pick a really desirable site and try to reserve it first, you're more likely to get skunked, and you will have to try for a different site afterwards, which means that more people will have had the chance to get your second, third, etc. picks before you.

To me, just getting any site in the Valley would be fine (except for those muddy ones). Bring your bikes so you don't have to deal with the traffic.

Good luck and enjoy your TM!

My suggestion after a zillion trips to Yosemite is to avoid staying in Yosemite Valley during the summer months at all costs. We much prefer Tuolumne Meadows (8,000'). It is cooler, less crowded, and the fishing is better! The Valley can be hot and overused, and the waterfalls are small or not flowing at all in the summer. It is an easy 1 1/2 hour drive from Tuolumne Meadows to the Valley making this a good day trip. Now if you are planning a spring or fall trip my advice would be different...

I'll second the Tuolumne Meadows idea. I have probably camped for a toral of 60-90 days in the valley over the years and it is a madhouse during the summer. The meadows is much better. We spent a week there in our last popup a couple of years ago and didn't have much problem getting a site. But the sites were tiny and very uneven. I can't imagine finding a camp site outside the park that would be any closer than the meadows. It is quite a drive from the park entrance to the valley.

[Bill]

One more vote for Tuolumne, for the reasons cited. We first went to Yosemite when the kids were small, almost 25 years ago, and stayed in the Valley in a small Class C motor home (rented). It was heaven! But 20 years later, the Valley was almost inaccessible. Strings of big tour buses, thousands of cars crawling along every road, stopped at every scenic site, lined up to get into every parking lot - you get the idea. It took us almost 2 hours to find a parking spot within walking distance of the lodge - and this was at a time when we did not have the TM in tow!

At that time, the Park Management was talking about an infrastructure change and rules changes to allow only a certain number of cars into the valley at any one time, and encourage/require visitors to use buses. Don't know if it was ever implemented ... But the Valley was a mess, which detracted substantially from the joy of being there.

Bill

[B_and_D]

I wouldn't hesitate to go camping in the Valley again after our last 2 experiences camping there with the TM. It wasn't that crowded. There was some traffic on the main road on the weekend afternoons, but we brought our bikes and just rode around it. We went just after school let out in June for a week; the other weekend was in mid-October. The Valley was beautiful in June; the waterfalls were full and the weather wasn't too hot. I did not want to leave. I've only had tears in my eyes leaving two vacations. The first time was on the plane leaving PV, Mexico in February, 25+ years ago, and the other was leaving Yosemite in June.

The main thing we didn't like about going there in October was the smoke from some prescribed burns; it really detracted from the grandeur of the park because of the limited visibility and if you have breathing problems I would imagine that it would aggravate your condition. We also got caught in an unexpected rainstorm that was fairly severe. Two Japanese climbers on the face of El Capitan died that night (there were freezing temps higher up). We had seen them the day before and later learned that they had perished. Some people from the Santa Cruz area were lost for a few days but made it out OK.

We've never been there in the heat of summer, so it may be different then.