The tale of reserving Yosemite Camping
It all started about 4 months ago when we decided it would be fun to drive down to Yosemite Valley to see the park since I don't remember it and Eliot's never been. I began doing some research about when to reserve camp sites in the coveted three camp grounds in the valley proper, North pines, Upper Pines, and Lower Pines (since camping is our only option at the moment). As it turns out, it isn't as simple as one might think.
First of all, reservation begins promptly at 7am PDT for all reservations five months in advance on a specified day for certain date ranges. In my case, we wanted to camp at the end of August (most crowded time, I know) and so our specific date to reserve happened to be April 15th, Tax Day (Dun dun dun!). I was told by multiple websites that the best camp sites go in the first 10 seconds or so of the date range, and the rest are all gone by noon (Break out the blood pressure cuff, I think I am going to pass out from the stress).
So I have spent the last few months pouring over reviews of specific sites, even looking at pictures of each site that someone has compiled on a webpage for my viewing pleasure. I made a list... best sites (ones next to Merced river with rock cliff views), good sites (not in a crowded area), and bad sites (next to the stables, the road, restrooms, or too close to neighbors). And I researched every trick possible to getting that all-too coveted shady spot by the drifting river with the magnificent views.
This morning I awoke at 6:45am, gathered myself together enough to be coherent and set up camp with my laptop, phone (in case the website stopped working and I needed to call) and debit card. I signed in 10 minutes early as specified, picked the beautiful site from the search list and received the message "Try to reserve again at 10am EDT."
This was expected, so I kept hitting the refresh button every 20 seconds at first and then as the minutes passed, as often as I could. When the clock rolled over to a glorious 7am, the browser took an extra minute to load (I almost had a coronary from the stress), and I was rewarded with what looked to be a confirmation of availability! I was so frantic from the thought of losing the reservation I barely read anything to do with it except to put in our details of how many people and what kind of equipment we have. Finally, I put in my card number, hit reserve and was rewarded with a CONFIRMATION page!!
I couldn't believe it... I didn't notice till later that I hadn't put in any # of cars in our reservation, and when I realized that I asked Eliot about 20 times whether he thought it would affect our reservation, terrified at the thought that I would lose it over such a trivial mistake. Of course it will be fine (Eliot assured me), the dates, people, card numbers, equipment, etc were all correct and that is not a detail you lose a reservation over. But after shaking from the adrenaline for 10 minutes from reserving a campsite, you just really don't want to lose it.
So here is a pic of our campsite from the website previously mentioned. I don't think I've ever had this much anxiety about reserving a relaxing vacation! But in the end it was worth it, we got the sit!!!
Excuse me while I go bear-proof my camping gear... :-)
First of all, reservation begins promptly at 7am PDT for all reservations five months in advance on a specified day for certain date ranges. In my case, we wanted to camp at the end of August (most crowded time, I know) and so our specific date to reserve happened to be April 15th, Tax Day (Dun dun dun!). I was told by multiple websites that the best camp sites go in the first 10 seconds or so of the date range, and the rest are all gone by noon (Break out the blood pressure cuff, I think I am going to pass out from the stress).
So I have spent the last few months pouring over reviews of specific sites, even looking at pictures of each site that someone has compiled on a webpage for my viewing pleasure. I made a list... best sites (ones next to Merced river with rock cliff views), good sites (not in a crowded area), and bad sites (next to the stables, the road, restrooms, or too close to neighbors). And I researched every trick possible to getting that all-too coveted shady spot by the drifting river with the magnificent views.
This morning I awoke at 6:45am, gathered myself together enough to be coherent and set up camp with my laptop, phone (in case the website stopped working and I needed to call) and debit card. I signed in 10 minutes early as specified, picked the beautiful site from the search list and received the message "Try to reserve again at 10am EDT."
This was expected, so I kept hitting the refresh button every 20 seconds at first and then as the minutes passed, as often as I could. When the clock rolled over to a glorious 7am, the browser took an extra minute to load (I almost had a coronary from the stress), and I was rewarded with what looked to be a confirmation of availability! I was so frantic from the thought of losing the reservation I barely read anything to do with it except to put in our details of how many people and what kind of equipment we have. Finally, I put in my card number, hit reserve and was rewarded with a CONFIRMATION page!!
I couldn't believe it... I didn't notice till later that I hadn't put in any # of cars in our reservation, and when I realized that I asked Eliot about 20 times whether he thought it would affect our reservation, terrified at the thought that I would lose it over such a trivial mistake. Of course it will be fine (Eliot assured me), the dates, people, card numbers, equipment, etc were all correct and that is not a detail you lose a reservation over. But after shaking from the adrenaline for 10 minutes from reserving a campsite, you just really don't want to lose it.
So here is a pic of our campsite from the website previously mentioned. I don't think I've ever had this much anxiety about reserving a relaxing vacation! But in the end it was worth it, we got the sit!!!
Excuse me while I go bear-proof my camping gear... :-)