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Drivers circle around a parking lot in Yosemite National Park looking for spots Saturday. Many visitors have created unofficial spots since Yosemite ended peak-time reservations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brooke Park\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Visitors make their way out of crowded parking lots in Yosemite Village\u00a0last May.<\/p>\n
Carlos Avila Gonzalez\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
National Park Service ranger Kate Trust walks on a lane used for pedestrians as vehicles use another lane at Yosemite National Park in February.<\/p>\n
Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
YOSEMITE VALLEY \u2014 For 45 minutes Saturday morning, Cynthia\u00a0Aparicil and Ulises Martinez inched in a line of traffic toward the entrance of Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n
Once through, the couple from Orange County headed to Yosemite Valley \u2014 only to circle parking lot after parking lot, unable to find a spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are smaller parking lots where it was just like five people were just waiting for one spot,\u201d Aparicil said as Martinez unpacked their hatchback in an unofficial spot. \u201cOn the side of the road, it was packed. Some people were just like parking crazy, sticking out, and we don\u2019t want to park like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Welcome to Saturdays in Yosemite National Park \u2014 and it\u2019s not even Memorial Day or summer yet. This year, for the first time since 2023, visitors will no longer need a reservation to enter the park on busy summer days. Last year, the reservation system began in June. The goal is to make the park easy to visit. But the tradeoff, officials readily acknowledge, is crowded on peak-season weekends \u2014\u00a0 especially Saturdays<\/a>. That manifests largely in competition for parking, particularly in the valley, and potentially long waits at the gate.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Chronicle earlier this month, Yosemite superintendent Ray McPadden said that Saturday mornings, in particular, will be busy in the park, but other days are mostly \u201cfine.\u201d<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not going to create elaborate restrictions for people,\u201d McPadden said. \u201cI think, generally, people have a high tolerance for other people around them.\u201d<\/p>\n A crowd gathers off-trail at Lower Yosemite Falls to take a closer look at the waterfall Saturday.<\/p>\n Brooke Park\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n For the past several Saturdays, the alert pings have come rapid-fire and early: \u201cCurry Village parking full. Parking may be available at Yosemite Falls parking area.\u201d \u201cAll parking in Yosemite Village is full.\u201d \u201cAll parking at Glacier Point is full.\u201d This weekend, with beautiful weather, was so busy that the alerts came Friday morning as well. Memorial Day weekend, a perennially popular weekend, is widely expected to be a \u201czoo,<\/a>\u201d in the words of one Reddit-er.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Martinez said his experience this weekend was markedly different from the times he visited the park with a reservation. Then, he said, he had waited in line for up to 15 minutes to get through the entrance and would be able to find parking without resorting to a patch of grass.<\/p>\n Around noon Saturday, in the parking lot near the Yosemite Falls Trailhead, a steady stream of cars crawled through the lanes. Cindy Woythal, from the\u00a0Tahoe area, said she and her daughter had reserved a camping spot in the adjacent campground, but she had little hope she would find a spot, pointing to several cars competing with her for space.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be back to taking your entire day to drive around the valley,\u201d she said while she slowly moved along in a line of vehicles searching for an open spot. \u201cThe reservation thing was a big issue when it first came out a couple of years ago, but we all adapted, and now this is what you get, you get too many people.\u201d<\/p>\n The parking lot is full at the welcome center in Yosemite National Park in April.<\/p>\n Bront\u00eb Wittpenn\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Woythal said she and her daughter just wanted to set up their tents when a car behind her honked their horn.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThen you have impatient people like that,\u201d Woythal said before driving out of the lot.<\/p>\n But for some visitors, the free-for-all was preferable to the planning that comes with committing to a reservation weeks ahead of time. Alfredo Espino of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County) pulled into a spot after searching for about 20 minutes. When he had come before with a reservation, he said parking was \u201cstill kind of a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like with a reservation system, it was a little harder to get into the park,\u201d he said while applying sunscreen. \u201cYou have to really plan ahead because everybody is trying to get in here as opposed to just being able to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Within three minutes after Espino parked, two hopeful drivers asked whether he was leaving.<\/p>\n McPadden, who became superintendent last year and helped fend off a planned permanent reservation policy, told the Chronicle that he\u2019s dedicating more staffing to traffic control in busy Yosemite Valley and encouraging the purchase of digital entry passes to reduce backups at the gates. The park saw an unexpected 45% jump in visitation in March over a year earlier, as warm, dry weather beckoned visitors and hastened the snowmelt feeding the waterfalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n While McPadden doesn\u2019t anticipate attendance to jump above average as much as it did in March, he does anticipate a busy peak season.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m expecting visitation to go up, and that\u2019s fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On Saturday, some visitors abandoned plans to drive to different hiking spots in the valley after encountering fierce parking competition. Alondra Garcia, of Modesto, sat at a shuttle stop after her search for parking led her nearly four miles away from her desired hike at Mist Trail.\u00a0<\/p>\n Visitors wait to board a shuttle Saturday in Yosemite National Park, where parking lots have been filling up early on weekends.<\/p>\n Brooke Park\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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