Yosemite Introduces Lottery for Camp 4

The following is a press release from Yosemite National Park stating that applies to the famous Camp 4 Campground. 

Yosemite National Park announces that a new pilot lottery program for Camp 4 Campground will launch on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. This daily lottery system will be operated through Recreation.gov and will help improve the visitor experience at Camp 4 Campground.

Camp 4 Campground is a walk-in campground and the only first-come, first-served campground in Yosemite Valley. Visitor demands for a camping space at Camp 4 have been increasing over the past decade and the current registration system no longer serves the public and meets the needs of current campers.

Under the current system, campers have to line up and wait for a first-come, first-served camping space to open. In order to wait for one of the available spaces to open up, campers line up all day, and sometime the night before, with the hopes of getting a camping space. This system is inefficient and has contributed to wildlife issues due to improper food storage, out of bounds camping, and conflicts between campers.

To help resolve these issues, Yosemite National Park is going to test a new pilot program from late May to early September, using a daily lottery system similar to the Half Dome daily lottery. Visitors interested in staying at Camp 4 will enter a daily lottery managed by www.recreation.gov. The lottery opens at 12:01 am pacific time the day before your intended arrival date. The lottery is open until 4:00 pm pacific time. The lottery automatically matches applicants with the number of open camping spaces. All people who enter the daily lottery will be notified by email on the results of their lottery application.

This new pilot program will run through the busy summer season and will be evaluated fall 2019. For more information on Camp 4 Campground, please visit: https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/camp4.htm.  For information in general on camping in Yosemite National Park, please visit https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/camping.htm .

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Starting May 21, space at Camp 4 will be available only via a daily lottery. This pilot program will last until early September. Previously during summer, campers often lined up the night before they tried to register in Camp 4 with the hopes of getting a camping space. That inefficient system contributed to wildlife issues due to improper food storage, illegal camping, and conflicts between campers. To help resolve these issues, we are testing a pilot program from late May to early September, using a daily lottery system similar to the Half Dome daily lottery. If you want to camp at at Camp 4, you will enter the daily lottery via recreation.gov one day in advance of when you plan to camp. The lottery will open at midnight and close at 4 pm (Pacific time). Since it's a lottery, it will not matter when during the application period you apply (no mad rush at 7 am!) #Yosemite #NationalPark #Camping

A post shared by Yosemite National Park (@yosemitenps) on Apr 16, 2019 at 5:54pm PDT