Yosemite-area resort with 104 cabins to open early 2026. Here are the details
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- Outbound Yosemite to open early 2026 with 104 cabins and 14 lodge-style rooms.
- Developer and Madera County will split hotel-stay tax revenue over 25 years.
- Resort will bring conference center to Oakhurst.
A long-anticipated mountain resort under construction just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park’s South Gate is slated to open in early 2026.
The resort, called Outbound Yosemite, will offer 104 cabins and 14 lodge-style rooms on 17 acres off Highway 41 in Oakhurst. A Wednesday news release from Outbound Hotels says the resort is “the brand’s first ground-up build.”
In some ways, it will also be the first of its kind in Oakhurst. Outbound Yosemite will bring a conference center to the Madera County mountain town, a new amenity that county officials say will add to the area’s visitor attractions. The project also results from an agreement county officials first approved in 2018 that allows the resort’s developer, Yosemite Ranch LLC, to share 50% of the revenue from the local transient occupancy tax that the resort generates for 25 years.
The tax is paid by people who stay in hotels, which later remit the revenue to the county. The Yosemite resort is projected to generate $26.9 million in revenue from that tax in 25 years, according to an updated agreement from 2022.
Madera County Supervisor Bobby Macaulay, who represents the Oakhurst area, told The Fresno Bee on Tuesday that keeping 50% of the project’s hotel-stay tax revenue is still a huge benefit to the county.
“The quote that my predecessor (former Supervisor Tom Wheeler) gave is, ‘50% of something is more than 100% of nothing,’” Macaulay said. “That’s $500,000 a year that can be used to hire more sheriff’s deputies or fund more fire stations.”
Outbound Yosemite opening early 2026
Outbound Yosemite will be located on the east side of Highway 41 in Oakhurst, just north of El Cid Mexican restaurant and Reimer’s Candies and Ice Cream. It will include the property where the temporarily closed Hounds Tooth Inn is located. The inn will reopen as part of the resort — though its units are not included in the resort’s tax sharing agreement, Macaulay said.
The resort will feature an “an expansive pool, hot tub and over 5,000 square feet of flexible indoor-outdoor meeting space,” Outdoor Hotels said in its Wednesday news release.
The cabins offered will have layouts designed for couples, families and groups, and will be arranged along the natural slope. Some units will feature outdoor showers.
The dining at Outbound Yosemite will be anchored by “Juniper,” a concept from hospitality group Folkart Management. Juniper will offer a “pizza-forward menu that’s elevated yet approachable with fare inspired by the region,” the release says.
Tax sharing agreement, investment in Madera County
Madera County first approved a 50% hotel-stay tax sharing agreement with the resort’s developer, Yosemite Resort LLC, in 2018. Under its conditions, the developer was to construct two hotels totaling at least 120 units.
“What we’re asking for is simply to allow us to recoup the cost of something that is a benefit for everyone,” Yosemite Resort LLC’s principal, Gautam Patel, told the Sierra Star newspaper at the time that.
The board approved an altered form of the agreement in 2022, under which the developer has to build one hotel with at least 75 units, though the property still has to maintain a taxable assessed value of no less than $20 million. The 2022 agreement also projected a larger amount of total hotel-stay tax revenue from the project.
The developer must also build a conference and corporate training center “of not less than 12,000 square feet,” the 2022 agreement says.
“There is some great hope that the existence of this conference center will extend the busy season up there in Oakhurst,” Macaulay told The Bee on Tuesday.
Traditionally, he said, Oakhurst is busiest with tourism between May and September. Macaulay said he hopes the conference center can create more visits to Oakhurst between October and April from “organizations coming up to host conferences in the area.”
The supervisor also said the developer is paying to extend a water line along Highway 41, allowing other businesses and residents in the corridor to connect to that line. He said Outbound will also be installing new fire hydrants along the highway and is working with Caltrans to address traffic safety near the project.
Other development plans just a few miles north intend to remake the 28-room Sierra Sky Ranch hotel into “an upscale lifestyle hotel with 150 rooms and villas,” according to a 2022 agreement the county approved with Sky Ranch Yosemite LLC.
Under that agreement, the developer will receive 75% of the hotel-stay tax revenue generated during the first 15 years of operation, then 50% for years 16-25 of operation. But under the Sky Ranch agreement, the developer will have to pay a special impact fee of $2.5 million to the county in $500,000 installments once building permits are issued for the project.
“They have not submitted for any permits at that project at this time, so I’m not sure when that will move forward,” Macaulay said about the Sky Ranch project.
This story was originally published October 11, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
