Dear forum members,
I am flying into San Francisco from Europe next Saturday and due to unforeseen circumstances my (work related) plans have been cancelled. On the bright side, this would give me the opportunity to pay a visit to the amazing Yosemite National Park.
Because I’m on somewhat of a budget and won’t have a car there, I would like to take public transportation and camp in the valley (I will buy a small tent, sleeping bag, ..) from 06/06 to 06/09. While doing some research, I found out that the combination of public transportation and camping (without having made a reservation) might not work. By the time I will arrive in the valley, I won’t be able to get a spot in the ‘first come first serve’ camp sites and the sites with reservation have all been booked since several months.
So far I have figured out that, from San Franciso:
1) I get to a BART station and make my way to the Richmond station
2) At the Richmond station, I can switch to Amtrak and ride until Merced station (San Joaquin line) = approx. 2.5 hours
3) Take a YARTS bus to Yosemite
4) From here, there will be shuttle busses connecting different sites/hotels/campsites
There are trains from Richmond to Merced at 7:54 – 10:14 – 12:54 – 2:49 – 6:14.
If I take the 7:54 AMTRAK, I should be able to take the 10:55 YARTS into the park (if I interpreted this time table correctly: https://yarts.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... evised.pdf)
By 1:25 the bus should arrive at Yosemite Valley Lodge, which seems relatively close to ‘Camp 4’ on the map. But will there be any spots available by that time? Apparently the ranger there arrives at 8:30 and a line has often been formed even before that hour, so my chances are not looking to good. Does anyone have any experience with this or have any suggestions? I’m not specifically aiming at ‘Camp 4’, any campsite will do!
Thank you in advance,
Jonas