Three of Yosemite’s campgrounds — Tuolumne Meadows, Bridalveil Creek and Crane Flat — will be closed as they undergo extensive renovations. There will be no camping available at all three sites during the closures.
Tuolumne Meadows will see the longest closure, as the National Park Service says that it will be shuttered until 2024, or even 2025, for rehabilitation. It is Yosemite’s largest campground, sprawling across 140 acres with 304 drive-in campsites for campers with cars, 21 for backpackers, seven group sites and four horse sites. The site serves 141,000 visitors a year.
Changes to the extensive site, which was first built in the 1930s and further upgraded in the 1960s, include an “improved and simplified road system, rehabilitated restrooms, with two new restrooms added ... and an updated water and sewer system,” the Tuolumne Meadows Campground page states. There will also be 12 walk-to campsites with parking when the site reopens.
Two other campgrounds — Bridalveil Creek and Crane Flat — will be closed until 2023.
Bridalveil Creek Campground is located along Glacier Point Road, which itself will be closed in 2022. The closure here will see replacements for the plumbing, water treatment equipment and generator building. It holds 115 sites for campers.
For Crane Flat Campground, changes including rebuilding roads, redesigning campsites, and replacing equipment. Critically, some campsites will be removed from areas that are ecologically sensitive. With the closure, NPS will reduce the total number of campsites from 166 to 151, but it is also planning to combine some single sites into double sites, allowing groups as large as 12 people to camp together. Because of that change, NPS is expecting “no reduction in overall capacity due to the addition of the double sites.”
Source: SF Gate