Yosemite’s largest campground reopens after three years. Here’s what to know

As promised earlier this month, Yosemite National Park will be re-opening the Tuolumne Meadows campgrounds for the summer.

The park service announced an Aug. 1 reopening for the campground, which sits along Tioga Road and the Tuolumne River and is the largest in the park (and one of the largest in the national park system).

It will remain open through Sept. 21, with a system of staggered reservations available online starting Tuesday, July 1. Reservations for early September will open July 15, and mid-to-late September reservations open Aug. 15.

All Yosemite campgrounds open

The announcement means that all 13 of the campgrounds inside Yosemite National Park will be open for the first time since 2019, with nearly 500 more campsites then what had been available last year.

“We’re very excited to have these campgrounds open to the public as we enter the busy summer season,” Acting Yosemite National Park Superintendent Ray McPadden said in a social media statement.

Other campground openings in July:

• Yosemite Creek Campground, July 1.
• Porcupine Flat and Bridalveil Creek campgrounds, July 15.

The news had Reddit users wondering about bathroom and other services at the campgrounds, given the staff changes in the parks that have happened under the Trump administration. The campgrounds at White Wolf and Tamarack Flat opened earlier this month without available drinking water and portable toilets only at White Wolf.

White Wolf Campground had been closed since 2023.

$26 million for new bathroom, campsite at Tuolumne Meadows

The Tuolumne Meadows Campground was built in the 1930s, and while its situated more than hour to the northeast of the more popular Yosemite Valley, it has become “a critical basecamp and launch point for visitors to adventure into Yosemite’s vast wilderness,” according to the park service.

On a normal year, it could see 141,000 campers.

The campground has been closed since 2022, when the park service began a $26 million rehabilitation project it calls “transformative.”

“We’ve been able to revitalize this beloved campground in a way that honors its past, protects its environment, and prepares it for future generations of visitors,” McPadden said.

The project was funded by the Great American Outdoors Act, which passed in 2020 and provided up to $1.3 billion a year (for five years) to support deferred maintenance on federal lands. It addressed more than $11 million in deferred maintenance at the campground while modernizing infrastructure and accessibility.

Among the changes at the change are:

• New bathroom facilities, including a new winter camping vault toilet.
• New hike-in camp sites — 29 of them.
• New campsite furnishings like picnic tables and food lockers.
• Upgraded infrastructure for water distribution and sewer systems.
• Improved accessibility (and companion seating) at the Dana Campfire Circle, where park rangers lead evening programs for campers.
• A realignment of the campgrounds Loop A road to create a 150-feet buffer zone with the Tuolumne River, per the 2014 river plan.

This story was originally published June 30, 2025 at 1:52 PM.