2007 November — campingsierra.com

Camping in Yosemite National Park is a favorite amongst tourists that visit there. Because it’s so popular, reservations are required year-round for Yosemite Valley’s campgrounds and summer to fall for Hogdon Meadow, Crane Flat, Wawona and Tuolumne Meadows.It’s important to book early to ensure you get your reservation. The camping reservations come in blocks of one month and you can reserve up to five months ahead. The reservations must be made through the National Park Reservation System (NPRS). During the popular months of May to September, it’s especially important to book early as the places are easily filled, sometimes within a few hours.

The other campgrounds don’t take reservations and come on a first-come-first-serve basis. These grounds are a good choice incase you can’t get a reservation of one of the grounds mentioned above. You can always try calling to see if there’s a cancellation too but be warned that not many cancellations occur during the summer months.

Reservations must be from the first day that the NPRS takes (15^th of every month) and reservations can now be made online http://reservations.nps.gov from 7am to 7pm PCT and you can call 800/436-7275 (301/722-1257 outside the USA) or 888/530-9796 (TDD users).

If you have an RV and/or trailer with you and you wish to stay within Yosemite Valley, the maximum length for your vehicle is 40 and 30 feet for RVs and trailers respectively. Outside the valley, some grounds are only capable of handling RVs up to 35 feet long.

Many can enjoy the benefits of camping in the park. It’s a great way of enjoying one of the world’s most natural sites. But there are a few regulations that everyone has to abide by in order to respect the surroundings. Food must be properly stored away from bears at all times, camping/sleeping in vehicles is allowed only in specified campsites and there is a maximum limit of 6 people and 2 vehicles per campsite.

The camping limit is 30 days but this varies during the popular summer months (see reservations website) where the limit is reduced. Pets are allowed in virtually all campgrounds but must be kept on a leash at all times. It’s also important to respect quiet hours, use generators only if needed, and dispose of wastewater in the designated utility drains. It’s not permitted to connect electrical extension cords to campground restroom outlets.

©Ted McCaleb

Yosemite National Park is an amazing place both physically and culturally but the physical history is much longer than its human history. Geologically, the park was not much more than a few gentle rolling hills with a maze of streams and rivers. Over time, a series of earth upheavals formed California’s Sierra Nevada creating mountains. This in turn shifted the Merced River west, which caused deep carvings into the rocks creating v-shaped canyons.

During the ice age, over time, glaciers formed and again carved away the v-shaped canyons effectively creating a u-shaped valley that we see today. The glaciers created hanging valleys and tributary creeks fell of shear cliffs effectively creating the park’s first waterfalls that it’s now famed for. With sediment washing down of the high country to fill Lake Yosemite, the valley was born.

As far as the cultural history goes, there has been recorded activity in this region for thousands of years. The Ahwahneechee people were amongst the first Native Americans to live in this area between 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. Different tribes lived in the area during this period. The Miwok tribe was the most recent of people and they named the valley Ahwahnee – ‘Place of the Gaping Mouth’.

The Native Americans used these areas for hunting and fishing, but all that changed when the white settlers in the 1800’s came to the area for gold mining. The white settlers angered the Natives and the two groups battled when eventually the Mariposa Battalion captured the tribe. The Natives returned to the valley and it was named after them.

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant; influenced by Californians; to make the park a state supervised public reserve. Tourists had been arriving for nine years prior but some tourists had been using the area for timber interests and so in 1890, congress set aside the park as a national park.

Later on, the areas in Mariposa Grove and Wawona, which was once a Native American encampment, were set aside for building more amenities for tourists such as Clark’s Station that served as a stop for visitors and Wawona Hotel, which is still operating today. This area focuses on the human history of the park and so has the Pioneer Yosemite History Center that educates people on the human history.

Overtime, more amenities were added including The Ahwahnee hotel, enormous and beautiful in structure, now a National Historic Landmark.
©Ted McCaleb