Drive right into Yosemite. Park drops reservation requirement for the rest of 2024

Yosemite National Park officials say visitors won’t be required to make reservations to drive into the park for the remainder of the year.

Park officials made the announcement on a Facebook post last week and said they originally planned on extending the requirement until Oct. 27 but ended it about a week sooner after monitoring “visitor use patterns.”

“We will automatically issue refunds to anyone who has a peak-hours reservation that was valid after October 13,” the Facebook post read.

National Park Service data show that an average of about 3 million to 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, including hikers, rock climbers, campers and mountain bikers. As of August, the national park had logged nearly 3 million visitors.

For years, Yosemite National Park officials have been grappling with congestion and experimenting with a reservation system as part of its plan to improve visitor experience by reducing overcrowding in the park, especially in popular Yosemite Valley.

Park officials took similar action last summer when they removed reservation requirements. Thousands of visitors descended on the popular park, which resulted in standstill traffic that made some visitors feel as if they were on one of L.A.’s congested freeways.

Although the park is open all year, nearly 75% of visitors come from May through October, according to the national park’s website.

Park officials said on its social media post that they would announce plans for managing visitor access in summer 2025 by the end of this year.