If you're heading to Yosemite National Park this weekend, expect to see crowds and perhaps catch a glimpse of President Obama and his family.
The president is scheduled to arrive Friday and stay through Sunday. As a result, park officials anticipate an extremely busy weekend, as record visitation continues. The White House announced last week that the President and First Family will celebrate Father’s Day weekend with a family trip to Carlsbad Caverns and Yosemite national parks.
“We are honored to host the President and First Family and we remain committed, as always, to serving every visitor to Yosemite,” said Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher. “We want to give all visitors advance notice that heavy traffic congestion, full parking lots and several short-term area closures are anticipated throughout the weekend, particularly in Yosemite Valley.” Yosemite staff will be implementing mitigation measures to ensure that visitor impacts are minimized.
President John F. Kennedy, with California Governor Pat Brown, was the last sitting president to visit Yosemite National Park, in 1962.
Superintendent Neubacher hopes visitors will appreciate the historic nature of this opportunity. “We encourage patience and understanding as the park staff manages any temporary visitor impacts," he said.
So far this calendar year, visitation to the park has increased by over 20 percent from 2015’s record visitation. Both last year and so far this spring, the park has seen traffic congestion, delays of up to two hours and full parking lots on weekends and holidays.
To reduce travel frustration and optimize sightseeing and recreational opportunities, the park will provide visitors with travel advisories before and during the President's visit. Those advisories will be posted on the park's website and shared through the park's social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.
As is typical on June weekends, visitors should expect extensive traffic delays and several temporary short-term area closures. Detailed information about these closures is still being developed and will be released as soon as possible. The park and the White House are working actively to minimize closures in the park during the President's visit, while ensuring the safety and security of the First Family.
Visitors are urged to enter the park before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m. to avoid traffic congestion and difficulty finding parking. Entering between these times will add to congestion and will likely lead to traffic delays of two or more hours.
Visitors are urged to use Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) buses that serve the park from several gateway communities and help reduce travel delays and congestion.
Local and regional visitors may wish to reschedule their trip for another weekend or during the weekdays. Visitors are also urged to enjoy neighboring gateway communities and other Sierra public lands and sites this weekend. Nearby areas such as Groveland, Eastern Sierra/Mammoth (Mono County), Oakhurst, Mariposa, and other public lands provide outstanding scenic and recreational opportunities and are likely to be less crowded this weekend.
All climbing routes from and including Church Bowl east to Washington Column (Washington Column itself remains open) will be closed from Thursday sunset through Sunday afternoon. This includes Bishops Terrace, Royal Arches, Serenity Crack, Son’s of Yesterday.
All campgrounds within Yosemite National Park on the reservation system are sold out through the weekend. There are a very limited number of first-come, first-served campsites within the park and those are expected to fill early. For 24 hour road and weather information, call 209-372-0200.
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Comments
This is no different from any other President's visits at any other time to public sites. I believe that many of the same voices who would complain about this are the same voices who complain that he does not visit or highlight the parks enough.
I agree Rick, but its funny that many of the voices that complain of a one hour delay in Zion don't seem to be concerned with the massive disruptions caused by a presidential visit at Carlsbad or Yosemite. Just shows how sincere their objections are.
EC, I'll voice concern. Not only for crowding at Zion and Yosemite, but throughout much of the National Park System. I was in Yellowstone on Sunday and folks were ignoring "no parking" signs along the Grand Loop Road and parking where they wanted, folks were swimming in the Firehole River despite no swimming signs, and Jenny Lake in Grand Teton was overloaded with visitors.
While the Find Your Park campaign just might be working, unfortunately the NPS is not prepared to handle these sorts of crowds.
As for the president's trek to Carlsbad and Yosemite, it would have been wiser to tour Theodore Roosevelt and Badlands national parks. Just wait until he heads to Yellowstone for Founder's Day in August. It won't be pretty.
So you are up for banning Presidential visits to the parks?
I didn't say that. But why go to one of the most crowded national parks? Why not truly put Find Your Park into play and go to one that's not already jammed with visitors? Show some true love for other deserving units.
I don't necessarily disagree, Kurt. I am merely pointing out that there are those that use "inconvienced visitors" as a rational to ban a bike ride that causes an hour delay but, like you don't want to ban a Presidential visit even though its inconvience factor will be far greater. That just tells me, "inconvience factor" isn't the real reason for their objection.
Traveler, I think the visit is extremely important, Yosemite has not been visited by a sitting President since JFK. I think it is also important that the President see the park at the peak visitor season. He will see first hand the operational and policy issues that are of concern to both employees and citizens. He will also meet with invited citizen groups including a theme to engage the youth of the nation in supporting the parks. Having the Chief Executive Officer of the US Government making the effort to see an iconic park at its scenic peak along with all the issues both employees and visitors face daily during this period (he will find Yosemite Valley enormously quite and uncrowded at night), is a win win for us all.
Ron, has a president ever visited Theodore Roosevelt, Badlands, Wind Cave, Canyonlands or most of the others?
The crowding issues at Yosemite are well-known and well-documented. Perhaps it would benefit the president if he went to Theodore Roosevelt and saw the location of a proposed oil refinery near the park entrance, or went to Canyonlands and took a side trip to inspect the Bears Ears area. He could go to Great Smoky Mountains and see the crowding there, and understand how the lack of an entrance fee greatly impacts that park's ability to manage, or he could travel to Big Cypress National Preserve to see how oil exploration could adversely impact that unit of the system.
Bottom-line, there are many, many worthy stops in the park system that would educate the president to the troubles of the parks. Going to Yosemite, with its well-known issues, is a nice, scenic stop for him, but there are many other parks that need the visibility, in my opinion.
All that said, he's in the final months of his presidency, he's already submitted his FY17 budget proposal, which was DOA. What might he do if he's shocked by the crowds?