Wawona Horse Campsites
3Heads up1 park alert · 2 fires, nearest 3 mi
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $50From, per site
- Sites
- 2All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1 – October 12Open May 1 through October 12
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Wawona Campground standard and Group site reservations are located here: https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232446 Wawona Horse Campsites are available to reserve up to five months in advance on the 15th of each month at 7:00 a.m. PST. For example, on January 15, arrival dates for the period May 15 to June 14 become available to reserve, and therefore, the full arrival date window would be from the campground open date to June 14. Yosemite National Park Campground Reservation Dates Reservation Tips! Campsites in Yosemite are extremely popular and typically sell out in minutes. Keep reading
Login to your account or create a new account before the 7:00 a.m. (PST) release time. You may only add reservations to your cart and proceed with your reservation if you are logged into your account. The recreation.gov call center does NOT have access to additional sites or additional information beyond what is published on recreation.gov. Wawona Horse Campsites are located in breathtaking Yosemite National Park in Central California's rugged Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The site is situated at the southern end of the park, 27 miles and approximately 45 minutes from Yosemite Valley, at an elevation of 4000 feet. Wawona was home to the park's headquarters in 1904 and historic structures still stand today. The majestic Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias is just a short drive away. Within Yosemite, visitors gaze upon waterfalls, sheer granite cliffs, deep valleys, grand meadows, ancient giant sequoias, a vast wilderness area and much more.
Recreation
Yosemite's trails, cliffs, roads, and rivers provide endless recreational activities for any kind of visitor. Hiking, biking, rock climbing, fishing, horseback riding, rafting, auto touring, and photography are all very popular activities within the park. The Pioneer Yosemite History Center is like stepping back in time. A visit to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, just four miles away, is a must-do. A network of hiking trails within the grove leads to stately trees with names like Grizzly Giant, Faithful Couple, and California Tunnel Tree. Wawona offers several additional hiking trails, including the Wawona Meadow Loop, Swinging Bridge Loop, Alder Creek and Chilnualna Falls.
Facilities
Wawona Horse Campsites accommodate only those with horses or other stock animals . Reservations are required. High lines, flush toilets and drinking water are provided. Each campsite contains a picnic table, fire ring, and food storage locker. A general store and gas station are less than a mile away.
Natural Features
The area is forested with a diverse mix of ponderosa pine, incense-cedar, white fir, and whiteleaf manzanita, which offers a pleasant combination of sun and shade. The gentle South Fork of the Merced River flows alongside the campground.
Nearby Attractions
Just 45 minutes away is Yosemite Valley, an awe-inspiring landscape containing many of the famous features for which Yosemite National Park is known. Hiking trails and bike paths are abundant in the valley. Rafting the Merced River is a fun way to cool down on a summer day when water levels are sufficient. Yosemite Valley also offers numerous guided bus tours, educational programs, museums, ranger-led activities, and an art center with workshops. Another scenic 45-minute drive leads to Glacier Point, with its sweeping views of Yosemite Valley, Little Yosemite Valley, Half Dome, Vernal and Nevada Falls, and Clouds Rest, among other notable landmarks. The Tioga Road, in the central region of the park, offers a 39-mile scenic drive past forests, meadows, lakes, and granite domes. Tuolumne Meadows embodies the high-country of the Sierra Nevada, with its broad sub-alpine meadows and granite domes and peaks. Beautiful Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is home to spectacular scenery and numerous wilderness trailheads.
What the agency tells you
If you arrive without a horse, your reservation will be cancelled and you will be asked to leave.
You are responsible for educating yourself and booking a site that will accommodate your equipment.
If arriving one or more days late, call (209) 375-9535. Your reservation will be cancelled if we do not hear from you within 24 hours of your arrival date.
Everything else this campground posts · 10
Bear Habitat! Food and toiletries must be stored 24 hours a day in food lockers provided (45" wide by 33" deep by 18" tall). No food or scented items stored in vehicles. Dispose of garbage immediately in bear-proof dumpsters.
Grain needs to be stored in food storage lockers provided on-site. Grazing is prohibited. The use of weed-free feed is encouraged.
Potable water and a dump station for RV's/Trailers is located behind the Wawona General Store on Forest Drive.
Campsites must be cleaned daily. Manure and uneaten fodder must be raked, bagged and deposited in dumpsters.
Use hitch lines or portable corrals to contain stock. If using portable corrals, they must be located under the hitch lines.
Your camping reservation does NOT get you into Yosemite for free. You must pay an additional fee per vehicle at the park entrance or buy a pass ahead of time on recreation.gov.
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Help Yosemite be a Zero Landfill park! Leave excess packaging at home. Use refillable water bottles, food containers and travel mugs. Place all of your recyclable waste in designated recycling containers. For more information go to: https://www.nps.gov/yose/getinvolved/zlf.htm
For additional park information, visit www.nps.gov/yose
Resale or auction of reservations is illegal.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 2 · 2 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets - seasonal
- Drinking water
- Yes
- Dump station
- Yes
- Store
- Nearby
- Bear boxes
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 7 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Hiking
- Horse Camping
- Picnicking
- Scenic drives
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 608th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $50 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
2 sites · the site map
All 2 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 2 of the 2 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 2 of the 2 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| HORSE | HORSE #1 (HORSES ARE MANDATORY) | equestrian nonelectric | 35 ft | 179 ft | 116 ft | $50 |
| HORSE | HORSE #2 (HORSES ARE MANDATORY) | equestrian nonelectric | 30 ft | 150 ft | 125 ft | $50 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Wawona CampgroundYosemite National Park · 2.4 mi
Summerdale CampgroundSierra National Forest · 3.6 miBig Sandy CampgroundSierra National Forest · 6.3 miFresno Dome CampgroundSierra National Forest · 8.2 miNelder Grove CampgroundSierra National Forest · 8.4 mi
Bridalveil Creek CampgroundYosemite National Park · 8.7 miTake Highway 41 north from Fresno, Highway 140 east from Merced, or Highway 120 east from Manteca into Yosemite National Park. Follow signs to Wawona. The campground is located 7 miles north of the South Entrance station on Highway 41, and 28 miles south of Yosemite Valley.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Wawona, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 71°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Wawona Horse Campsites is in California’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Tom McClintock (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →