This post has been updated to reflect that Yosemite's day use reservation system will no longer be in place as of Nov. 1.
Yosemite is open again.
California's most iconic national park on Friday, Sept. 25 ended a weeklong shutdown —put in place after a thick blanket of wildfire smoke settled over the central Sierra Nevada and pushed air quality readings into the "very unhealthy" and "hazardous" categories.
The smoke, mostly from the Creek Fire burning in the mountains south of the park, was so dense this week that at times the walls of epic granite monoliths like El Capitan and Half Dome were invisible even from nearby in Yosemite Valley.
Yosemite spokesperson Jamie Richards said that by Thursday, Sept. 24, the air had cleared dramatically.
"We’ve got blue skies and conditions have significantly improved over the past week," she said.
Visiting Yosemite National Park: Reservations and Passes
The park also announced it's offering an expanded number of campsites, about 300 in all, in Yosemite Valley. Visitors can make reservations for the Lower Pines, Upper Pines and North Pines campgrounds at recreation.gov. A spot check Friday showed a handful of sites still available in the coming weeks.
Speaking of reservations: As part of Yosemite's pandemic protocols, all visitors currently require some type of reservation to enter. This means you'll need either a campground reservation or a hotel reservation — or, if you simply want to drive through the park, a special day use pass.
On Sept. 29, park officials announced that Yosemite's day use pass system will now only be required through Oct. 31. That means that starting Nov. 1, day use passes will no longer be required.
Want to Visit Yosemite for the Day?
Day use reservations for any visit up to and including Oct. 31 must be made on recreation.gov. Park spokesperson Richards said 1,700 day use passes are available each day and advised that weekends see consistently higher demand.
Passes, which go for $33 per car or $28 per motorcycle (or free if you have a senior or other annual federal public lands pass) are already sold out for Saturday. Reservations for Sunday are still available.
A few more things to know about the day use reservations:
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- Visitors are required to show up on the date they've reserved.
- Passes are good for seven days.
- Reservations go on sale at 7 a.m. PDT daily 48 hours in advance (in other words, passes for a Monday go on sale the previous Saturday morning; passes for a Tuesday go on sale the previous Sunday and so on).