How to Actually Get a Yosemite Campsite Reservation

Roughly 2,800 campsites in Yosemite National Park compete against a few million people who'd like to use one on a summer weekend, and the park manages that mismatch with a reservation system that rewards exactly one skill: being at a keyboard, logged in, at the right second. We've booked Valley sites four years running and missed exactly as many years as we've landed, so here's what we've learned about doing it on purpose instead of by luck.

The short version: almost all individual campsites in Yosemite Valley and the high country are booked through Recreation.gov on a rolling release, five months out, and the popular campgrounds are gone within a minute or two of release. There's no lottery for most sites anymore — it's first click, first served, which makes the exact release time the single most important piece of information in this article.

The Reservation Windows You Need to Know

Recreation.gov releases Yosemite campsites on a rolling monthly basis, five months ahead of the stay date, opening at 7:00 a.m. Pacific on the 15th of each month. Book a July 20th night, for example, and that site becomes available at 7:00 a.m. Pacific on February 15th — not a day before, not a minute after.

• Upper, Lower & North Pines, Yosemite Valley: released 5 months ahead, on the 15th at 7:00 a.m. Pacific
• Wawona and Hodgdon Meadow: same rolling 5-month release
• Tuolumne Meadows (seasonal, typically July–September): opens on its own rolling schedule once the campground opens for the season
• Camp 4 walk-in: not bookable in advance — see below

How to Book the Moment Reservations Open

Create your Recreation.gov account days in advance, not the morning of — account creation and payment verification under time pressure is how people lose sites they were otherwise fast enough to grab. Have your payment method saved, not just entered once before.

At 6:55 a.m. Pacific, have the exact campground's booking page open and refresh at 6:59. The calendar grid updates the instant the window opens; clicking a date and confirming within the first 30 seconds is realistically what it takes for Upper Pines on a summer Friday or Saturday. Weeknight stays and shoulder-season dates (April, late September, October) are dramatically easier — we've grabbed October Tuesday nights in Upper Pines with no rush at all.

Reserve on Recreation.gov

Which Campground to Pick

Upper Pines is the largest Valley campground and your best odds purely on volume — 238 sites compared to Lower Pines' 60 and North Pines' 81. It's also the busiest and closest to the shuttle stop, which some people want and others actively avoid. North Pines backs onto the Merced River and books out almost as fast despite fewer sites, because the river access is worth it to a lot of repeat visitors.

If the Valley floor doesn't book, Hodgdon Meadow near the Big Oak Flat entrance and Wawona near the south entrance both see noticeably less competition and still put you within a 30–45 minute drive of Valley trailheads.

Permit Fees and What They Actually Cover

Every Recreation.gov campsite booking carries a $10 non-refundable reservation fee on top of the nightly site fee, which runs $26–$36 a night in the Valley campgrounds depending on the site and season. That's separate from the $35 per-vehicle park entrance fee, which is good for seven days and isn't bundled into your campsite reservation — bring both confirmations.

If your reserved dates fall through, Recreation.gov allows cancellation up to two days before arrival for a partial refund minus the reservation fee; cancelling closer to your date forfeits more. Cancelled sites do reappear in the booking system in real time, which is the one semi-reliable way to land a site outside the initial release window — refreshing a sold-out calendar in the days before a trip does occasionally turn something up.

Wilderness Permits for Backpackers

If you're heading into the backcountry instead of car camping, you need a wilderness permit, not a campsite reservation, and the system is different: 60% of permits for each trailhead are released through a preseason lottery in spring, and the remaining 40% become available 24 hours in advance through a first-come process, with some permits held for walk-up requests at the permit office the morning of. The wilderness permit itself costs $10 per person, cheaper than most Valley campsite fees, but trailhead quotas for popular routes like Half Dome's approach or the John Muir Trail southbound exit fill the lottery fast.

Camp 4 and the Walk-In Exception

Camp 4, the Valley's walk-in tent campground and a piece of climbing history, works differently from every other site in this article: during peak season it's allocated through a daily lottery run the afternoon before, applied for online, rather than an advance reservation. It's the one realistic option for a trip booked with less than five months' notice, and it's worth applying for even if you've already got a reserved site elsewhere, since it's often easier to land than it sounds.

What to Do If You Miss the Window

If the five-month release comes and goes without a site, your remaining options are the Camp 4 daily lottery, watching for cancellations on Recreation.gov in the weeks before your trip, or looking at camping just outside the park in the Sierra National Forest or along Highway 120 near Tioga Pass, both of which have first-come, first-served sites that don't touch the Recreation.gov system at all. None of these are guarantees, but combined with a flexible date range, they close most of the gap the five-month lottery leaves open.