Hello all! I am a college student living in South Carolina that is getting ready to embark on the trip of a lifetime out west with 2 friends. We are very excited to visit Yosemite, and I had a few questions that I was hoping you guys could answer. I apologize if questions like this have already been asked, but I tried searching the forums and couldn't find anything. We are driving up to Yosemite from Los Angeles on the morning of Wednesday, August 7th. We do not have reservations in the valley, but we do have half dome permits for Friday the 9th. My questions are:
1: We are hoping to get a backcountry permit for Half Dome, so that we can leave on Thursday afternoon and stay the night in LYV and summit half dome on Friday. I do not have any sort of backcountry permit, but we were hoping to get a "first come first serve" permit when we get to Yosemite on Wednesday. Do I have any chance of getting a backcountry permit for LYV/Half Dome arriving at 11:00am, or will the line be too long?
2: Similar to the first question, we are going to stay at Tamarack Flat campground on the days we are not hiking half dome (if the backcountry permit works out), will we be able to get a campsite at that campground mid-day Wednesday, or will it all be sold out?
Thanks for any and all help guys! I am very excited to finally see Yosemite