After being closed since last week due to hazardous levels of wildfire smoke, Yosemite National Park will reopen to the public at 9 a.m. on Friday.
Park officials said Wednesday afternoon that conditions have improved since last Thursday, when the park was closed because smoke levels were so thick from nearby wildfires in the Sierra Nevada that it was unhealthy for park workers or visitors to be outside.
“I’m looking at Bridalveil Fall right now,” said Scott Gediman, a Yosemite spokesman. “Air quality has significantly improved since last Thursday. It was clear with blue skies this morning. It’s a little hazier this afternoon, but there is still good visibility.”
Campsites in Yosemite Valley will be available for incoming campers beginning on Friday. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Yosemite officials require day-use reservations to enter the park. For more information and to obtain a day use reservation, go to www.recreation.gov.
Good news for campers: Park officials are also making more campgrounds available to the public. Until now, because of coronavirus, only one major campground in Yosemite Valley, Upper Pines, was open, and at only 50% capacity. Starting Friday, however, Lower and North Pines campgrounds also will reopen, with nearly all spaces open, a move that adds several hundred new spaces.
Mariposa County, where Yosemite Valley is located, is among the three counties in California with the lowest rates of COVID-19, along with Alpine and Modoc counties. Under state guidelines, it is in the yellow tier, allowing for more business activity.
Hotels in the park reopen on Saturday.
Fire has not been burning inside Yosemite. But the Creek Fire, burning between Yosemite and Kings Canyon national parks near Shaver Lake in rural Fresno County, has blackened 289,695 acres and sent smoke across the region. It was 32% contained on Wednesday.
As a result of the fire, park officials had closed the Mariposa Grove. But that is expected to reopen in a few days, Gediman said.
The smoky conditions that visitors and employees were experiencing last week were extreme. The air quality in Yosemite Valley last Thursday afternoon measured a shockingly high 785 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index scale. Anything over 150 is considered unhealthy. The levels at El Portal and Tuolumne Meadows were 588 and 540.
By Wednesday afternoon, they had fallen to 55, according to an air monitor near the Yosemite visitor center.
