Reservations Not Required For 2023 Yosemite Day Trip Visitors

Enjoy that freedom while it lasts, Yosemite day visitors, as the reservations required to visit the popular national park will return.

Here’s more from the San Jose Mercury News:

Ending a requirement that has been in place for the past three years, Yosemite National Park won’t require people to make reservations next year for day visits to the famed Sierra landmark.

But next month, Yosemite officials will begin a planning process that could result in permanent reservation requirements for day-use visitors after 2024.

“The issue of congestion and gridlock have been issues for 30 or 40 years,” said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. “The time is right to initiate this process and come up with a managed access plan. We’re hearing from visitors and the environmental groups that want to address this. It never had been addressed in a comprehensive plan. And we want to incorporate the tourism industry’s concerns.”

In 2020 and 2021, for the first time in the park’s 157-year history, Yosemite officials limited the number of people who could visit the park due to concerns over the COVID pandemic.