Camp 4 Yosemite Valley — Attraction in Oakhurst

This was our second trip to Yosemite and camping in the valley is an absolute must! INCREDIBLE!||||Logistics: ||||I can confirm all of the reviews talking about arriving early for a few spots. It's Yosemite Valley. Who wouldn't want to be there?||||After landing at SFO we drove to Merced to cut our early travel time up. ||||What was supposed to be an hour drive into the Valley turned into 2 1/2 because of a rock slide the night before. ||||We arrived at 5:00 am and there were 35 people in line already. Some arrived as early as 2! (Perhaps overkill?). ||||There were 78 spots available on the Tuesday we arrived. Plenty got turned away. On Friday that week there were only 26 spots and people were waiting at 10pm the night before! (Def overkill)||||The park ranger arrived just after 8 and we were checked in at 10 (again just like all the other reviews).||||Tips:||||Mid-day is the busiest (obviously). ||||We avoided the crowds by getting up early (5 am) each day for photography. We also began our hikes earlier too. ||||We laid low at our campsite on days we weren’t hiking and went back out around 5 as families and day trippers left. ||||We used the showers at the Yosemite Lodge pool ($5 to swim and shower) and at House Keeping Camp ($5 for the week).||||The Cafeteria at the Lodge was decent there are outlets to charge camera batteries.||||There is wifi at the Library in the village but its slow. ||||Atmosphere:||||I think everything comes down to who camps at your site with you. Everyone we shared site #1 with felt like family. ||||I was able to set up and propose to my now fiancée on top of glacier point at sunrise with the help of the other campers who were all eager to help and later celebrate! I needed someone brave to stand near the edge of the Glacier Point cliff to take our picture (secretly) and one of the campers we shared site #1 with gladly risked it all for the picture :P||||We couldn't have asked for a better experience! ||||We stayed a full week. It was tiring, our backs were sore, every piece of clothing smelt like smoke and we loved every second of...

This was our second trip to Yosemite and camping in the valley is an absolute must! INCREDIBLE!||||Logistics: ||||I can confirm all of the reviews talking about arriving early for a few spots. It's Yosemite Valley. Who wouldn't want to be there?||||After landing at SFO we drove to Merced to cut our early travel time up. ||||What was supposed to be an hour drive into the Valley turned into 2 1/2 because of a rock slide the night before. ||||We arrived at 5:00 am and there were 35 people in line already. Some arrived as early as 2! (Perhaps overkill?). ||||There were 78 spots available on the Tuesday we arrived. Plenty got turned away. On Friday that week there were only 26 spots and people were waiting at 10pm the night before! (Def overkill)||||The park ranger arrived just after 8 and we were checked in at 10 (again just like all the other reviews).||||Tips:||||Mid-day is the busiest (obviously). ||||We avoided the crowds by getting up early (5 am) each day for photography. We also began our hikes earlier too. ||||We laid low at our campsite on days we weren’t hiking and went back out around 5 as families and day trippers left. ||||We used the showers at the Yosemite Lodge pool ($5 to swim and shower) and at House Keeping Camp ($5 for the week).||||The Cafeteria at the Lodge was decent there are outlets to charge camera batteries.||||There is wifi at the Library in the village but its slow. ||||Atmosphere:||||I think everything comes down to who camps at your site with you. Everyone we shared site #1 with felt like family. ||||I was able to set up and propose to my now fiancée on top of glacier point at sunrise with the help of the other campers who were all eager to help and later celebrate! I needed someone brave to stand near the edge of the Glacier Point cliff to take our picture (secretly) and one of the campers we shared site #1 with gladly risked it all for the picture :P||||We couldn't have asked for a better experience! ||||We stayed a full week. It was tiring, our backs were sore, every piece of clothing smelt like smoke and we loved every second of...

The location of this place gets 4/5. The high number of stars is mainly because because of beutiful surroundings and fact that its in Yosemite. I took a rating off because this campground is located next to a very busy road and it takes away from the expereince. Site quality gets 3/5 mainly because the place lacks grass and is very dusty with ditry tables and dirty bear lockers. The bear lockers are made of metal that literally boils your food inside. I woudl imagine that over the years NPS would come up with ideas on how to solve this problem. The facilities are 1/5. The bathrooms are dirty and unacceptable with only one facility per the campground on east end. The sink was not washed for at least a month with blood on it and soot. The showers had malfunctioning shower heads and dirty floors with barely hanging curtains. Don't even look for soap. No water available anywhere near the campgrounds. Customer service 4/5. It was an easy check in with flexible staff and very nice. The rangers at the site were helpfull and guiding but they are undersupported and underpaid. I will highlight that reservartion process is one of the most ridiculous I have ever seen. Don't count on making your plans unttil a week before as you won't be able to reserve a spot. At the end I don't want this to sound negative but more stimulating for our Deprtment of Parks and National Forest Service to do a better job. Yosemite is a beutiful place to come and stay in and enjoy but we shoudl be ashamed as a country to offer such suboptimal renaissance age conditions for its guests to stay in. I wish someone from these departments would go and visit international national parks and learn how to provide superb expereince. That said Yosemite remains one of the most beutiful places in the world and I encourage everyone to visit and stay there but I hope the service and facilities will at some point...