Story: Finding One's Way to an Intimate, Yet Spacious, Yosemite Walk-In Campground

Just inside Yosemite National Park's northwest entrance is a brown building called "Reservations." In June a kindly ranger there answered all of my first-timer questions, until I asked, "And what about a wilderness permit?"

He couldn't say. "You'll have to ask over at the Wilderness Permits office.”

Seeing as how the Reservations ranger didn't know anything about wilderness permits, it would have made sense that the Wilderness Permits office was very far away. But luck was on my side. It was right next to the Reservations office. I took my first Yosemite hike on over. In the Permits office the Permits ranger and I talked awhile about wilderness camping, when a question about campgrounds occurred to me. He said I'd have to ask our buddy over at Reservations.

"Really?" I said. "You can't tell me anything about the campgrounds?"

"That's correct," he said.

"So," I clarified, "you only know about permits and he only knows about reservations,"--"Yep," he said--"even though you're side by side in identical buildings that both deal with setting up camp in the park?"

With an exasperation for customer service I hadn't anticipated once having cleared the park entrance toll booth, I looked over at the Visitor Information lady, who wasn't listening.

"Yes," the ranger answered concealing any shame that making such things clear might have caused. On the contrary he added with a bit of pride, "We only know what we're supposed to know."

I didn't say anything, but hiking back to Reservations I thought that sounded ridiculous, and dangerous. But then, perhaps influenced by the prideful way he had said it, I realized the wisdom in his remark. Knowing what you're supposed to know is more than most people know, and more than most people are willing to admit. So instead of going back there and shouting, "That's ridiculous! And dangerous!" I became grateful that reflection, perhaps the wilderness’s most precious gift to man, had visited me so early into the trip.

At the Reservations building, I found out that on this Saturday morning two days after the Summer Solstice all of the campgrounds except one did still have vacancy. A considerable relief: The lack of planning in this last-minute drive to one of America’s most popular national parks on a summer weekend was really starting to pay off. That was a notion both rangers reassured, without consulting each other first, which was also reassuring. In fact, they recommended that I not even seek out a site until I’d gotten to Tuolomne Meadows on the other side of the park near the end of the day. Only there should I check the availability, which at 304 sites plus seven group sites and four horse sites is one of the largest in the park, and only then should I decide where to stay based on the number left at those grounds.

When I got to Tuolomne in the late afternoon it was only half-full, which meant chances were good the grounds beyond Tuolomne would have space, as most people find a spot by the time they get that far east.

Tuolomne Meadows Campgrounds also offers “backpacker” sites as an alternative option, but your hike to them would consist not so much of backcountry as driveway, as you walked from your parking spot across the street through the cars and Recreational Vehicles to the primitive sites just beyond them. But, if you’re trying to save money, it does cost only $5, while car-camping at Tuolomne costs $20.

Looking for something more out in the wilds but still not too far from the car—a disappointment-laden position if luck is not on your side—I moved on to Tioga Lake and Saddlebag Lake, small lakes with only a few sites. Tioga Lake turned out to be right off Tioga Road, an easy no. A mile or so along the gravel road to Saddlebag I passed what the map told me was Saw-Mill, a walk-in campground hidden from the road by pine trees and a slight decline. It had a very small parking lot.

A few minutes later the gravel road dead-ended at Saddlebag Lake, which has a dam you can walk across and a fishing-boat launch. The sites are crammed together up on the small hill above the lake, and the scenery on this day was dominated by supersized pick-up trucks and their trailers, and that dam.

So I went back and took the last parking space at Saw-Mill Campground and walked a path that led through those view-obstructing pines, and that opened up to a grassy meadow studded with shapely rocks and small critters and birds darting to and fro. The meadow met its end at a short cliff. A few strides down, the cliff ended at a rocky stream snaking through a wider grassy meadow. A snow-patched gray mountain ridge rose from the meadow to catch the last rays of the setting sun.

With only about eight sites, spread out in the meadow and tucked away in clusters of trees between ridges, the campground felt intimate and spacious at once. The only problem was, every site had already been claimed! I started asking around just to be sure I wasn’t overlooking a vacant one, when I met Dave and Kevin, a father and son traveling from Ohio to San Francisco. After a brief chat, Dave invited me to share their site, explaining that they were using only one of the two tent pads. The campground was full, but their site was half-empty. It was a win-win situation for me and the National Parks Service, which charges $12 per site.

A month later I returned with my brother and the hope that the campground wouldn’t be full on a weeknight—the sites can’t be reserved—and found many sites were still unclaimed. The next night we left the car a little farther behind and, wilderness permit in hand, hiked out into the Cathedral Lakes backcountry. There, we had an entire lake to ourselves, and no cars in sight. But you can’t see any cars from Saw-Mill Campground either.