Wawona campground entrance / NPS

As national parks nationwide grapple with a staffing crisis caused by seemingly indiscriminate federal budget cuts, Yosemite National Park will be delaying selling campground reservations at five of its most popular campgrounds this summer. The decision was announced in a post to the park's Facebook page. The impacted campgrounds are Upper Pines, Lower Pines, North Pines, Wawona, and Hodgdon Meadow. As of now, the delay is expected to affect dates from June 15 through July 14. 

It's unclear from the post if the delay is specifically related to staffing problems, but the federal hiring freeze instituted immediately after Trump assumed office combined with 1,000 probationary Park Service employees being terminated within the past month sure points to that possibility. At this point in the year, seasonal hiring would be ramping up to fully staff campground operations over the summer. The park relies heavily on seasonal staff to deal with the millions of visitors that jam Yosemite Valley each summer. 

It's also unclear when, and if, Yosemite will resume requiring day-use reservations to enter the park, a popular system that has seen reductions in crowding. The park announced earlier this year it would be making an announcement about the reservation system sometime early in 2025, to give the new administration time to weigh in on the policy. 

"We understand the impact this has on visitors who are planning camping trips to the park," the park wrote about the reservation delay. "We are grateful for your patience. Our goal is to release these campground nights as soon as possible and we will provide at least a seven-day advance notice before reservations go on sale. The notice will be posted to the park's website and social media feeds."

Typically, reservations for these campgrounds are released five months in advance and sell out almost immediately. Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows Campground, which has been closed for the past few years undergoing major renovations, is slated to open this year too, but reservations are not on sale there until June 15 at the earliest. 

Though the legality of terminations and the delay in hiring seasonal workers is in question, and federal judges may soon weigh in, at this point even if seaonal hiring was ramped up, it may be too close to the summer season to adequately plan for the park's annual crush of visitors to avoid complications for both visitors and park infrastructure.