I found myself very frustrated after being unable to book a single site in the valley this past week. So I sent this letter to Don Neubacher. Interested to hear other people's thoughts on how we can make the campground reservation system more fair and available to all.
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Greetings Superintendent Neubacher,
I am writing you regarding campground reservations at Yosemite National Park, specifically in the valley. I would like to recommend that you move to a lottery system, or year-to-year priority system for campground reservations.
Here is my story. I had made a note of the date to book a site in Upper Pines for our June camping trip. Friday January 15th at 7 am PST. I logged on to Reserve America the night before, re-familiarized myself with the site, noted where we wanted to camp, etc. Then in the morning at 6:40 am I logged on. I monitored the NIST clock and clicked right at 7 am. I could not get a single site in Yosemite Valley for June 10/11/12th. I tried and tried, and the system would show a site available, but when I clicked on it, it would say Inventory Not Available.
We have a decent computer and (what I consider) fast internet (15 Mbps, Comcast cable internet). I was at the computer earlier, I had logged on. I am not sure what else I needed to do to get a site. If someone has written a software that can grab sites, that is beyond my reach. If someone can sit in their office that is equipped with fiber optic links or is simply younger and can click faster, that is beyond my reach.
I love Yosemite; the summer I worked for ]Yosemite] Curry & Company in Yosemite was one of the best summers in my life. I want to come camping there with my children. But I cannot get a site. I do not have the option of going off-season as I have school-aged children.
I have given this some thought and I think the only way to make the system fair is either a lottery system, or a lottery + past stay system. That is, if you stayed one year, you get lower priority the next year. Yes, implementation won’t be easy, with people’s different dates and site requirements, but it’s a solvable problem. The way the system is now is not fair to many of us. Please do something about it.
I am happy to help work with your staff or other volunteers to devise a more fair system.
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