YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — Yosemite National Park is seeing heavy congestion at the start of its first summer without a timed reservation system, with visitors reporting long lines, limited parking and crowded conditions throughout the park.<\/p>\n
So far this year, Yosemite has recorded nearly 100,000 more visitors than at the same point last year, contributing to what many describe as chaotic conditions.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Yosemite National Park ends its reservation system for 2026<\/a><\/p>\n They said the biggest issue was long wait times to get inside the park. “People were waiting for at least hour and a half,” said visitor Andranik Arakelyan.<\/p>\n The waiting didn’t stop there.<\/p>\n “I would say by 7:30, the entire park, it was impossible to park there. There’s nowhere to park for anybody,” said visitor John Leerskov.<\/p>\n Visitors waiting to find parking, board shuttles and access popular viewpoints.<\/p>\n “It was a lot of shoulder to shoulder, a lot of chaos, a lot of angry people, a lot of oblivious people,” Leerskov said.<\/p>\n It looks like some grew impatient, with videos showing dozens of cars illegally parked.<\/p>\n “People pulling onto meadows, pulling off pavement, going off-road. The lines to get even shuttles around the park, I mean, from the videos were just horrendous,” said conservationist and author Beth Pratt.<\/p>\n This is the first summer visitors can enter Yosemite without a reservation requirement, following what park officials described as a “comprehensive evaluation.”<\/p>\n