If you don't want to drive your RV around the park, there are buses and shuttles in some areas; some are free and run by the park service, others are paid trips.
The YARTS bus might be an alternative for you to get to/from Yosemite Valley from Crane Flat, since a YARTS bus stops at the Crane Flat gas station at 11:30 am and arrives at Yosemite Valley Visitor Center at 12:05 p.m. But then it leaves the visitor center at 5:00 p.m., and stops (on demand only) at Crane Flat at 5:30. So using that would give you only 5 hours in Yosemite Valley. The round-trip fare for that would be only $5 for adults and kids over 12, $3 for the 10-year-old, so it would cost you $23 for the round trip, but it would save you having to drive the RV into Yosemite Valley.
That same bus leaving Yosemite Valley stops at Tuolumne Meadows about 6:45 p.m, so that wouldn't help you to visit Tuolumne Meadows because you'd be stuck there overnight until the next YARTS bus bound for Yosemite Valley comes to Tuolumne Meadows at 10:15 a.m. That doesn't seem like a workable plan for visiting Tuolumne Meadows.
There is a Delaware North Corporation (DNC) bus that leaves Yosemite Lodge in Yosemite Valley at 8:20 am, stops at Crane Flat at 9:05 am, arrives at Tuolumne Meadows store at 10:20 a.m. Then it leaves Tuolumne Meadows store at 2:15 p.m. and stops at Crane Flat at 3:25 p.m. So that would give you just under 4 hours to do a hike in the Tuolumne Meadows area, such as the relatively easy hike to Pothole Dome and back. The roundtrip fare would be $19 per person, except the 10-year-old would ride for $9.50 round trip. A total of $85.50 seems like a lot to pay for just 4 hours of hiking time, though the drive along Tioga Road is highly scenic and enjoyable the whole way, still I don't know if it's worth $85.50 to have someone else drive you.
The park runs a free shuttle bus along a portion of Tioga Road, from Olmstead Point to Tuolumne Meadows and back, but to use that you would have to at least get from Crane Flat to Olmstead Point somehow. It runs every 30 minutes between 7:30 am at Olmstead Point to 6:00 p.m. I don't know what the policy is about parking an RV at the parking lot at Olmstead Point, so I don't know if that shuttle would be a workable solution for you.
If you were to stay at Wawona, there are a couple of free park shuttles that would be helpful. The park runs a free shuttle from Wawona to the parking lot of the Mariposa Grove, so you would not need to drive to the Mariposa Grove and search for parking there. That shuttle guarantees you access to the grove even if the parking lot at the grove is full.
The park also operates a free, once-a-day shuttle from Wawona to Yosemite Valley. It leaves Wawona at around 8:30 a.m. every day and goes to Yosemite Village. It leaves Yosemite Village every day at 3:30 p.m. and goes back to Wawona. It is mainly designed for the benefit of people staying at the Wawona Hotel, the campground or other accomodations in the Wawona area (there are privately-owned cabins in the area as well). But anyone can ride it for free. However if you use that, you will be limited by its schedule and you will have to leave Yosemite Valley by 3:30 p.m or else you will be stuck in the valley.
There is no free shuttle up to Glacier Point, but you can take a paid DNC-operated bus tour from Yosemite Valley up to Glacier Point and back, the round-trip fare for that is $41 for adults, $23 for children. Some people just buy a one-way ticket for that bus ($25/$15) and the hike back down to the Valley Floor using either the Four-Mile Trail or a combination of the Panorama Trail and Mist Trail. That bus tour runs 3 times per day, leaving Yosemite Valley at 8:30 am, 10am and 1:30pm.
Or, you can always just drive up to Glacier Point on your own. There is a large parking lot at Glacier Point with some RV spaces but I don't know how many. Washburn Point, 1/2 mile before Glacier Point, is also well-worth seeing since the view from it is more to the east, while the view from Glacier Point is mainly to the north. And Washburn Point is quieter and less crowded. The parking lot for Washburn Point is much smaller than that for Glacier Point and I don't know if there are any RV spaces there or not.
There are also 2 free shuttles on the floor of Yosemite Valley, the Yosemite Valley shuttle which covers the center and east end of the valley, and runs from 7 am to 10 pm, and the El Capitan shuttle which covers the west end of the valley (but not the extreme west end or Bridalveil Fall, it only goes as far as the El Capitan Bridge), and it operates from 9 am to 6 pm. The two routes overlap at 2 stops in the center of the valley. If you drive in to the valley and park at the day use visitor parking lot, you can use those 2 shuttle routes to get to most locations on the valley floor. Those shuttles are free but can be crowded.
Is the RV one you own, or are you going to rent one? Have you considered the possibility of just getting a van or SUV, and buying some cheap tents and sleeping bags and camping in tents instead of staying in an RV? The van or SUV may make driving around and finding parking a lot easier, then you would probably not need to use any paid buses.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2011 02:17PM by Bob Weaver.
