Day-Use Reservations Planned at Yosemite

When it finally reopens from flood damage, Yosemite National Park will require day visitors during summer months to do something they have never had to do: call and make a reservation.

“This is an emergency response to the flood damage,” said Kendell Thompson of the National Park Service. Park officials said that because of ongoing repairs the roads into the park would not be able to handle normal summer traffic flow.

“Visitors with overnight accommodations won’t be impacted,” Thompson said. “It’s going to affect those people who look out the window on a Sunday or holiday and say, ‘It’s a great day outside. Let’s drive to the park.’ ”

Details of the day-use reservation system still need to be worked out, park spokesmen said, and it could go into effect as early as May.

But Yosemite officials warn visitors to get used to it. A permanent plan restricting access to the park in busy summer months will almost certainly be part of Yosemite’s future.

“We are looking at a system where people are guaranteed access to the park, either by having a reservation to get their car in or by hopping on a shuttle bus from one of the surrounding communities for those without reservations,” said Chip Jenkins, the park’s chief of strategic planning.

Jenkins emphasized that the shuttle system is in “a conceptual phase,” and that while park officials would like to have it up and running by May, the success of the effort depends in part on the willingness of local business to set up and run the shuttle system.

He said the National Park Service cannot provide the money to operate the buses.

Jenkins said the number of cars admitted through the reservation system would be limited to the number of available parking spaces in Yosemite Valley.

He called the plan “a major step” toward achieving a long-standing goal to reduce crowding and congestion in the park’s valley.

“This would give us a chance to see how to do it successfully over the long term.”

Jenkins made it clear, however, that the park’s long-range goal was not to eliminate cars from the valley. At most, he said, plans call for the eventual building of an 1,800-car parking lot and transit center at the west end of the valley where visitors would board buses.

Last year, due to overcrowding, park officials were forced to close Yosemite Valley to new visitors seven times, leaving a long line of tourists grumbling that they had driven for hours only to be turned back at the gates.

B.J. Griffin, the park’s superintendent, said Tuesday that she hopes to set up a permanent day reservation system by 1998 to reduce traffic in the valley. If the system works this summer, it may stay in place, she said.

“People would probably rather have a piece of paper saying they are guaranteed to get in, than having to sit at the gate for three hours,” Griffin said.

The switch to reservations this summer has been dictated partly by more than $178 million in damage from the January floods that forced the park to close. Water rose higher in the valley than at any other time since Yosemite became a national park in 1890, the Merced River forging new channels, ripping up roads and bridges, washing out sewer systems and upending cabins and campgrounds.

Portions of the park, including Yosemite Valley, remain closed to the public. “We’re working extensively on the roads and the sewage lift stations,” said spokesman Scott Gediman. “As we continue to make progress, we will allow visitors to come into the park.

“We’re not trying to keep people out, but if we just open the gates, the infrastructure won’t be able to support the visitors.’

The flood damage added fire to a debate that has raged for more than two decades: how to accommodate the greatest number of visitors without ruining the “Yosemite experience.” Much of that debate has centered on the automobile.

Since 1980, the park service has undertaken numerous studies aimed at reducing the impacts of traffic and parking on the valley floor. Despite a briefcase thick with proposed solutions, no plan has been implemented.

A day-use reservation system is an integral part of any comprehensive plan, park officials said.

While the new reservation system will be in place every summer day, park officials said tourists who happen to come on a slow day might be able to get in without a reservation. Tourists will be able to use a toll-free number to make reservations up to several months in advance.

“We’re not cutting off access to Yosemite Valley,” Thompson said. “But for those who are planning to drive up for the day, they’re either going to have to plan ahead and call, take a bus or hope they timed it right and it’s not crowded.”