Yosemite National Park has announced that most visitors will require reservations to enter the park between May 21 and September 30 this year. Due to the pandemic, masks and socially distancing etc. will be required.
Just like the people who operate grocery stores, work in health care and provide so many other public services, staff in Yosemite will be working harder than ever under challenging conditions to ensure public safety.
So, if you go, be patient and courteous. Thank, but do not hug, a ranger.
It might also just be a good time to visit Hetch Hetchy. As Carmen George noted in her Fresno Bee article, reservations are not needed to enter Yosemite through the Hetch Hetchy entrance.
That’s good, or not so good, depending on how you look at it.
It’s good, because you can indeed go without a permit. Even with the reservoir covering the valley floor, Hetch Hetchy is a spectacular landscape.
The reason, however, that Hetch Hetchy is so uncrowded is that the National Park Service has never provided the opportunities for visitors that were widely dicussed when the Raker Act was passed and Congress expected would be available at Hetch Hetchy.
Camping, lodging, boating and fishing are not available. There are few trails and Hetch Hetchy’s most popular trail must often be closed for safety when waterfalls are at their most spectacular. The entrance gate is open only during limited daylight hours, so it’s the rare visitor who sees a sunrise or sunset. It’s no wonder Hetch Hetchy is the least-visited and most under-appreciated area of Yosemite and receives barely 1% of the park’s visitors.
Hetch Hetchy can accommodate more visitors in 2021 and in future years while protecting the area’s wilderness quality and wildlife, and without harming water quality in the reservoir. Restore Hetch Hetchy will be asking the National Park Service to provide improved public access. We believe people need to see the wonderful landscape and learn the story of the valley’s damming, so they will then support the opportunity to return Hetch Hetchy to its natural splendor.
More to come on this subject – soon.