Yosemite

[Richard Barnes]

Another questions for you veterans. The lovely Mrs. Barnes and I would like to visit Yosemite the weekend of May 23 and 24. I cannot find a lot of information on local RV parks and whether they can accomodate a 45' coach. Any suggestions? I've googled my fingers off and no luck.

[Loc]

Richard,

We have visited Yellowstone three times. The closest park that we found was the KOA in Midpines. It was a tight fit for a 40 foot bus and the sites weren't very level. Our last visit we found a great campground although it is a drive to the park. The Lakes RV & Golf Resort in Chowchilla. A top notch RV resort with paved pull throughs and a great pool and clubhouse. They even include two rounds of golf daily in the rate. The website is thelakesrv.com. It is an hour and a half drive to the National Park, but it is a pretty drive. We went in the south entrance of the park and exited to the west. Chowchilla is south of Merced and north of Fresno off of Highway 99. There is also a KOA in Coarsegold which is south of the NP. It has gravel sites that look level although we haven't stayed there. I would pick Lakes and make the additional drive.

Loc

[LA-HODAG]

Richard: We stayed at Yosemite Pines in Groveland 2 years ago. I think it is the closest RV park to Yosemite that could accommodate even our puny 40 footer, yet it is still about 20 miles from the main Yosemite park entrance. They had some nice, big unpaved spaces that should easily fit your 45. If I remember right, they had electric and water, but no sewer at the unpaved sites. The rv park is fine, but not really very special. It is along a small river under a nice canopy of pines, so that part is nice. The people who ran it were also nice. (In retrospect, maybe the rv park was great, but it so pales in comparison to Yosemite NP that I judge it too harshly.)

The website is: yosemitepinesrv.com (sorry, I don't know how to make this into a live link.)

Pay heed to the warning that they now have on the website (but did not when I went) about the route to take. The most direct route from the west to Groveland is highways 49 and 120. But after 120 splits off from 49, the highway has so many tight turns that the middle of even our 40 crossed the centerline many times, sometimes dramatically so. It would be scary in a 45, but I did see some big tour coaches making the run. We had to have a lookout watching for oncoming traffic far ahead and plan for evasive manuevers. It is also very steep. We were crawling in second gear and high jake for much of the twisty trip back down. Also note that you cannot take a 45 footer on highway 41 from the south to Yosemite, so the park is a little difficult to get to in a bus. Nonetheless, it is well worth the effort, as Yosemite is spectacular.

Have a great time!

[BrianE]

Bryan, The easiest way to make a live link is to google the desired site or go to it, copy the entire URL and paste it to your reply. http://www.yosemitepinesrv.com/. Works for me. :)

[mikedee]

We dry camp at Chukchansi Casino near the park. The casino is very RV friendly with an area set up for parking. It is starting to get hot during the day but still very cool at night. I you can dry camp I would consider parking here.

The waterfalls will be great that weekend.

http://www.chukchansigold.com/

[Jerry Winchester]

Richard,

We also stayed at Yosemite Pines and it is a good park and Groveland is a quaint town. While we made that trip in a 40'er, Bryan's comment about the road is very true. If I had to do it in our 45'er, I would have my wife drive the Hummer from where the road splits to the RV park.

And as much as I thought crawling up that grade was a pisser for the old 8V92, coming down was even better. Jake Brake in low gear is the only way down and again, I would not tow because we were across the centerline so many times it was like following Loc around the 610 Loop in Houston.

It is a great trip, but make no mistake; it's a damn steep climb in and even worse coming down.

4734

[Richard Barnes]

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated!

[Richard Barnes]

This is exactly what we've decided to do. No problem with the Casino?