Yosemite National Park Finally Announces Reservation System
Andrew S)">
After months of confusion and delay, Yosemite National Park has announced its reservation rules for the summer of 2025. On May 6, people can book their reservations through the National Park Service's website starting at 8 a.m. Pacific Time. While the new system is significantly less restrictive than previous years, some advocates argue that it won't prevent traffic from overwhelming the park.
Reservation requirements for 2025 start on Memorial Day Weekend (May 24-26) for anyone driving into or through Yosemite between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. After that, people will only need reservations if they visit from June 15 to August 15 and from August 30 to Labor Day (September 1).
'This system ensures all visitors, whether they plan in advance or decide last minute, can experience the park each day,' Yosemite National Park officials wrote on the website. 'It also spreads visitation across the day so that visitors have a better experience.'
This new system replaces a previous 2025 visitation plan that would have required reservations every day from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Memorial Day to Labor Day, with weekend-only reservations in April, May, September, and October. According to Mark Rose, the Sierra Nevada program manager for the National Park Conservation Association (NPCA), that was the preferred system among Yosemite park officials.
'If the administration truly cared about the visitor experience at Yosemite this summer, it would have allowed park leaders to move forward months ago with its preferred reservation system, which was refined over the past several years, and led by data, deep community engagement, and commonsense,' Rose said in a statement.
On the morning of May 6, reservations for all dates will be released on the National Park website. Additional dates will be posted 7 days ahead of the arrival date. Reservations will be available for purchase every day at 8 a.m. There is a $2 reservation fee that does not include the $35-per-car Yosemite National Park entrance fee.
Be sure to have an account on Recreation.gov set up before logging onto the site to book your dates.
'Reservations sell out almost immediately,' NPS warns. 'Even if you're logged on by 8 a.m., there is no guarantee you will be able to get a reservation.'
Anyone with a Half Dome or wilderness permit, reservations for in-park camping or lodging, or who accesses the park using a regional transit or tour bus is exempt from the 2025 reservation requirements.
To visit without a permit, simply enter the park before 6 a.m. or after 2 p.m. You can also visit Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy area without a reservation during daylight hours.
Generally, Yosemite National Park announces its reservation system months before summer. However, in February, it suspended reservations at five of its largest campsites due to understaffing. It announced that it was waiting for a 'blessing' from the new administration to move forward with its plans for summer reservations, The LA Times reported.
According to the NPCA, visitation at Yosemite has exploded in the last 20 years, soaring by 30% between 2020 and 2019. The crowds caused congestion and gridlock throughout the park, so reservation systems were piloted starting in 2020. Since then, the program has been refined, streamlined, and adapted. NPCA said this new 2025 reservation system is 'insufficient to protect the park.'
'It's clear that when implemented thoughtfully, reservations significantly improve the visitor experience while protecting Yosemite's invaluable resources,' Rose said. 'Last year, over 4 million people visited the park with a more expansive reservation system in place. Smart planning doesn't mean fewer people, just a better experience for all.'
Whether this new reservation system will result in more crowds and negatively affect visitor experiences remains unknown. However, with fewer resources and continued staffing shortages, increased visitation could cause problems.
'Attacks on park staffing aren't just about the numbers; they directly impact visitors, local communities, and the landscapes we cherish,' Rose said.
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Travel + Leisure
2 hours ago
- Travel + Leisure
This National Park Has Some of the Oldest Pueblos in North America—and They're Carved Directly Into a Cliff
In southwest Colorado, where the Rocky Mountains give way to canyons and mesas, is one of the most intimate places you can connect with ancient history in the United States. In Mesa Verde National Park, you'll find elaborate villages tucked beneath sandstone overhangs. These cliff dwellings were built by the Ancestral Pueblo people and date back more than 700 years. The historic structures provide a rare glimpse into a civilization that built complex homes, ceremonial kivas, and irrigation systems. 'Mesa Verde is unique because it is a national park telling the story of people on the landscape. Even though all national parks have human stories, the Ancestral Pueblo people, the ancestral sites they built, and the park's connection to modern Pueblos and Tribes are key here,' said Dalton Dorrell, a park ranger on Mesa Verde's Interpretation and Visitor Services team. 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No reservations are needed to enter the park, and entrance passes are $20 per vehicle during the low season (Oct. 23–April 30) and $30 during the high season (May 1–Oct. 22). Passes are good for seven days. If you want to walk inside one of the park's renowned cliff dwellings, you must book a tour up to 14 days in advance. Cliff dwelling tours run from May to October, ending in the winter. The park is still open in the colder months, but many of the facilities close, including the lodge, campground, and most dining options. It is worth noting that all of the park's historic sites and cliff dwellings are at least 45 minutes by car (one way) from the park's entrance on Highway 160. Brian Bartlett, the tourism director and CEO of Mesa Verde Country, advises travelers to 'gas up before you come as there is almost no fuel to be purchased in the park.' The park is also completely cashless, so bring a card. And finally, Mesa Verde National Park is different from most because it contains so much human history. The ancestral sites are extremely important to the park's 26 affiliated tribes and are also very fragile. "Two easy ways you can visit with respect is to not touch or sit on ancestral site walls and to leave any artifact where you find it," Dorrell said. The Mesa Top Loop Road Ruins contains some of the most elaborate Pueblo dwellings found today. Christian Kober/robertharding/Getty Images The park is between the Colorado towns of Cortez and Mancos, near the Four Corners region, where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. It shares some land with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe reservation. The nearest airports to Mesa Verde National Park are Cortez Municipal Airport (CEZ), about 36 miles away, Durango-La Plata County Airport (DRO), about 70 miles away, and Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN) in Farmington, New Mexico, 89 miles away. 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Plus, summer comes with wildflowers and chances to spot wildlife, including bears and bobcats. Winter isn't a bad time to visit, either, and you can see sites like Spruce Tree House covered in snow, or you could even cross-country ski or snowshoe the park's winter trails. However, keep in mind that many of the park's facilities close in the colder months. In addition to its national park website, you can follow Mesa Verde's Facebook page, where delayed openings and temporary park closures are posted. Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park is the the largest cliff dwelling in North America. Daniel A. Leifheit/Getty Images Cliff Palace was once home to over 100 people and is the largest known cliff dwelling in North America. It is believed to have been built between 1190 and 1280 C.E. and has 23 kivas, or ceremonial rooms. You can see the Cliff Palace from the Cliff Palace Overlook on Cliff Palace Loop Road, but if you want to step inside this massive structure, you must book a ranger-guided tour. Tours are limited to 50 people and take 45 minutes. Tourists exploring the Balcony House ruin, an Ancient Puebloan (Anasazi) cliff dwelling that was inhabited until the 13th century. wanderluster/Getty Images If you're physically fit and enjoy a bit of a challenge, reserve a tour of Balcony House, where Dorrell said visitors must 'climb a 32-foot ladder, climb two smaller ladders, and crawl through a 12-foot tunnel.' But the effort is all worth it. The path leads to a mid-sized village of 38 rooms set inside a rock alcove. Like the Cliff Palace, the Balcony House can be viewed from the six-mile-long Cliff Palace Loop Road. Those who want to set foot in the village must book a guided tour. 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There's usually a ranger on-site to answer questions. The Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings lit by lantern light sit under a star filled sky. BradWhile most people come to the park to see how early humans lived, the park becomes a stargazing destination at night. Due to its high elevation, arid climate, and distance from the nearest community, the skies above Mesa Verde tend to be clear and inky black—ideal conditions for stargazing. Mesa Verde National Park became the world's 100th International Dark Sky Park in 2021. Booking a campsite at Morefield Campground (open May through October) is a great way to see the night sky. And in late summer, the park runs evening stargazing programs. A guest room at the Far View Lodge within Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park. Morefield is the only campground in the park and is open from May to October. But if you time a visit just right, you can enjoy a night in one of the 267 campsites that dot the grassy canyon near the park's entrance. 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Voyageurs National Park faces budget cuts amid 50th birthday revelry
If you've ever spent time planning a milestone birthday party, and then found out you don't have the resources to truly celebrate, you might understand what's happening at Minnesota's lone national park in 2025. Voyageurs National Park, the 218,000-acre expanse of water and wilderness on the Canadian border just east of International Falls, turns 50 this year. And the gala celebration planned by the park's myriad fans has been tempered just a bit by the announcement earlier this year of sweeping budget cuts all across the National Park Service. According to some reports, the budget reductions announced in February by Elon Musk and his controversial Department of Government Efficiency have left as many as 10 park staff positions vacant at Voyageurs. The park opened in 1975 amid fanfare and some controversy, as some long-time property owners in the area were pressured to sell their lake cabins to the NPS. But none of that potential bad news, or a spring cloudburst, could dampen the recent celebration of the park's 50th birthday held at a Minneapolis brewery by the Voyageurs Conservancy – which was founded a decade before the park opened, and works to connect more people to Voyageurs. Hundreds braved a sudden late May rain and turned out for the celebration, which featured information about Voyageurs, food, live music and a silent auction to raise money for the conservancy's efforts. 'Everyone loves a birthday, and we're birthdaying the hell out of the birthday. We're doing it all year long. It's not just one day, it's a full year of activities,' said Christina Hausman Rhode, the conservancy's executive director. 'We've had a couple of bumps in the road with federal changes. We've lost staff and there's some uncertainty there, but through it all this is an important moment to celebrate the park, to be thinking about the future and to be thinking about the vision for the national park in our state.' The park welcomes upwards of 200,000 visitors per year, with a notable uptick during the pandemic, when more people were seeking outdoor recreation. Those numbers put Voyageurs somewhere in the middle, attendance-wise, among the country's 63 national parks, far below the 12 million visitors the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina saw in 2024, and well ahead of Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska, which saw just over 11,000 visitors last year. Isle Royale National Park, which is in Michigan but located just off the tip of Minnesota's Arrowhead and is accessible only by boat or plane, recorded 28,800 visitors in 2024. Hausman Rhode said that in a state like Minnesota that celebrates the outdoors from the wilderness of the Boundary Waters to the hiking trails of the Driftless area in the southeastern corner of the state, a surprising number of people aren't aware that the state has a national park, and many have never been there. Collectively, the conservancy is working to change that. 'We are another part of that mosaic of wonderful public lands in our state,' she said. 'I think Voyageurs kind of completes that mosaic, as it's everything Minnesotans love. It's the big lakes, it's the boats, it's the loons, it's the wolves. And we put it in a national park, and it's our gift to the rest of the National Park Service.' In addition to opportunities to view wildlife up close and camp in secluded sites specially designed so you don't see neighboring campers, Voyageurs sells itself as a Dark Sky Park, popular for stargazers for the lack of light pollution and the opportunity to see a vast cosmic array and even northern lights on clear nights. While fishing, camping and boating have always been staples for Voyageurs visitors, Hausman Rhode said houseboating and sea kayaking are among the activities seeing a recent spike in popularity at the park. The DOGE cuts have touched off a backlash from coast to coast, with a group called More Perfect Union erecting billboards in Minnesota and Wisconsin noting that the Trump administration's funding reductions could mean reduced staff and increased danger for park visitors in 2025. 'We are down some staff positions and the next proposed federal budget is looking really grim for the National Park Service,' Hausman Rhode said. 'We don't know totally how that will filter down to the National Park Service, but we know cuts are being proposed.' The park has visitors centers at Rainy Lake, Kabetogema Lake and Ash River, all of which can be reached from the Twin Cities in under five hours of driving. The park does not require an entry fee, although there are separate charges for camping, houseboat permits, boat tours and on-site equipment rentals. More information about the Voyageurs Conservancy and their efforts can be found at No Wi-Fi, no problem: 8 family-friendly hike-in lodges for a digital detox Skywatch: June stargazing — the great late show Minnesota veterans with PTSD turn to the outdoors to improve mental health A 700-pound boulder pins Alaska man face-down in a glacier creek for three hours Skywatch: High heavenly hair
