Yosemite National Park, located in east-central California, offers 13 campgrounds for tents and RVs up to 40 feet in length. The campgrounds offers access to numerous hiking trails and 12 miles of paved biking paths in Yosemite Valley. You can also climb Half Dome or El Capitan, raft the Merced River, birdwatch, or fish the Park's streams and rivers.
Regions of the Park
The Park can be broken down into two areas, including the Yosemite Valley and outside of Yosemite Valley. Both areas offer a variety of campgrounds.
Planning Your Trip
All visitors must buy a National Park pass to enter the park. Buy the pass online or at the park's entrance stations. If you plan to fish, you need a California State fishing license, available at the park's general stores. You'll also find limited camping supplies and groceries at the stores.
Yosemite Valley Campgrounds
Yosemite Valley offers campgrounds for tents and RVs, including Lower, North and Upper Pines campgrounds. Upper Pines offers 238 campsites, making it the largest in the valley. All of the campgrounds offer tap water, flush toilets, picnic tables and fire rings. Upper Pines offers a dump station. For recreation, hike the easy one-mile loop trail to Lower Yosemite Falls. A challenging hike takes you a little more than nine and a hal miles to views of the valley. Cast your line for rainbow and brown trout along the stream running from Happy Isles to Foresta Bridge. If you plan to climb Half Dome or head up El Capitan, these campgrounds make good base camps.
Camping Outside Yosemite Valley
Outside of Yosemite Valley, you'll find more campgrounds. The largest campground, Tuolumne Meadows, offers 314 campsites. Bridalveil Creek, Crane Flat, Hodgdon Meadows and Wawona campgrounds offer flush toilets and tap water. Both Tuolomne Meadows and Wawona, offer dump stations. Three campgrounds, including Porcupine Flat, Tamarck Flat and Yosemite Creek, offer pit toilets and stream water you must treat before drinking. Hike the Wawona Meadow Loop, an easy three and a half-mile trail that takes you past meadows of wildflowers. Extend the hike a few more miles to see to the huge redwoods in Mariposa Grove. For a challenging hike, head up the little more than eight-mile Chilnuaina Falls Trail that takes you through open forest to views of the Wawona area. Put your raft in along the South Fork of the Merced River near Wawona.
Walk-in and Backpacker Camping
Sunnyside Walk-in Campground in Yosemite Valley offers year-round camping. Backpackers can also camp at walk-in sites in Tuolumne Meadows and behind North Pines campgrounds. You'll need a free wilderness permit to use backpacking campsites.
Reservations and Limits
Wawona, Sunnyside Walk-in, Upper Pines and Hodgdon Meadow campgrounds stay open all year. The other campgrounds open during the summer months only. There is a 30-day camping limit in the Park per year. The exception to that is from May 1 to September 15 when camping outside the valley is limited to 14 days. Campers staying in the valley or at Wawona Campground outside the valley are limited to seven days during the summer.
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