itOpened Blog · Booking Systems
Yosemite's 15th: The Month-by-Month Release Playbook
Most campgrounds unlock one day at a time. Yosemite unlocks a whole month in a single morning — the 15th, at 7:00 a.m. Pacific, five months ahead — and the good nights are gone before your coffee cools. Here is the full year of release mornings, mapped.
Quick answers
- When do Yosemite campgrounds release?
- Yosemite Valley campgrounds (Upper Pines, Lower Pines, North Pines, Wawona, Hodgdon Meadow) release one month of arrival dates on the 15th of each month at 7:00 a.m. Pacific, up to five months in advance, on Recreation.gov.
- Which arrival dates does each release cover?
- The release on the 15th opens the block starting five months later: the November 15, 2026 release covers arrivals March 15 – April 14, 2027; the February 15, 2027 release covers the peak block June 15 – July 14, 2027. The full table is below.
- Is Tuolumne Meadows on the same schedule?
- Partly. Tuolumne Meadows releases half its sites two months ahead on the same 15th-of-the-month pattern; smaller campgrounds like Crane Flat run two-week rolling windows at 7:00 a.m. Pacific instead.
- What happens if I miss the 15th?
- The month isn't over — it's recycled. Held carts time out in about 15 minutes, and speculative bookings cancel all season. In our first nights of live scanning, Yosemite's Upper Pines produced more confirmed openings than any other campground in our registry (see the cancellation index).
Watch it with itOpened
The 15th is the loudest morning. Cancellations are the quiet one.
Proof, from our own scanners: 27 confirmed openings at Upper Pines since Oct 29, 2026 — each one re-verified before logging. See the live cancellation index.
Watch Upper Pines openingsFree to start. We never book, hold, or resell — you book it yourself, in your own account, at the normal price. Fees pay for monitoring; openings are first-come and cannot be guaranteed.
If you learn one date in American camping, learn the 15th. Yosemite runs the most regimented release calendar on Recreation.gov: no daily trickle, no rolling window for its valley floor. Instead, the campgrounds strung along the Merced River — Upper Pines, Lower Pines, North Pines, plus Wawona and Hodgdon Meadow — release their inventory in monthly blocks, on the 15th, at 7:00 a.m. Pacific, five months ahead of arrival. One morning decides a month of Yosemite nights, and that morning is a contact sport.
The year of 15ths
Each release covers a one-month arrival block. Read the table the way a regular does: find your trip first, then read left to the morning you have to win.
| Release — 7:00 a.m. PT | Arrival block opening |
|---|---|
| Nov 15, 2026 | Mar 15 – Apr 14, 2027 |
| Dec 15, 2026 | Apr 15 – May 14, 2027 |
| Jan 15, 2027 | May 15 – Jun 14, 2027 |
| Feb 15, 2027 | Jun 15 – Jul 14, 2027 |
| Mar 15, 2027 | Jul 15 – Aug 14, 2027 |
| Apr 15, 2027 | Aug 15 – Sep 14, 2027 |
| May 15, 2027 | Sep 15 – Oct 14, 2027 |
| Jun 15, 2027 | Oct 15 – Nov 14, 2027 |
| Jul 15, 2027 | Nov 15 – Dec 14, 2027 |
| Aug 15, 2027 | Dec 15, 2027 – Jan 14, 2028 |
| Sep 15, 2027 | Jan 15 – Feb 14, 2028 |
| Oct 15, 2027 | Feb 15 – Mar 14, 2028 |
The February and March 15ths are the Super Bowls: they carry the June, July, and August blocks, when school is out, the waterfalls are still running (June) or the high country is open (July–August), and every family in California has the same idea in the same minute. The November and December 15ths, carrying spring blocks, are measurably calmer — and spring in the Valley, with the falls at full power, is the connoisseur's trade.
The exceptions that punish assumptions
- Tuolumne Meadows plays a different game: it releases only half its sites, two months ahead, on the same 15th pattern — a shorter runway and a second release rhythm to track if the high country is your target. The other half of the campground's inventory follows its own first-come arrangements in season.
- Crane Flat and the smaller campgrounds run two-week rolling windows at 7:00 a.m. Pacific — no monthly event at all. Campers who wait for a "release day" that never comes are a standing source of available sites for everyone else.
- Group sites and the Valley's specialty inventory follow their own listing rules. As everywhere on Recreation.gov, the listing text is the law — our release-windows guide shows how to read it.
The morning routine, down to the minute
By 6:45 a.m. PT: logged in (sessions expire — log in fresh), payment saved, party size and equipment length set. Open the exact campground page, not the park page: in Yosemite's block release, navigation time is inventory lost. Know your order of battle: first-choice campground and dates, second choice, third — written down, because the interface will not wait while you deliberate, and a site you hesitate over is a site in someone else's cart. At 7:00: select and complete checkout well inside the ~15-minute cart hold. At 7:15: the first abandoned carts begin recycling — the same flicker window the Washington Monument hunters know. Keep checking until about 7:45 before you call it. After a total miss: you are now in the cancellation market, which for Yosemite runs all season — the subject of how campsite cancellations actually work, and the market our cancellation index measures nightly. In the live log's first nights, Upper Pines alone produced more confirmed openings than any other campground we scan — released at 7:03 to the fastest clickers in California, and returned, quietly, by ordinary people whose plans changed.
Which Valley campground, honestly
Upper Pines is the biggest (235 sites in the official directory) and the most fought over; it is also, for the same reason, the richest cancellation market — the largest inventory produces the largest absolute number of drops. North and Lower Pines are smaller and closer to the river's bend; Wawona sits near the south entrance, an hour from the Valley floor, and trades the iconic commute for a measurably calmer release morning; Hodgdon Meadow, near the Big Oak Flat entrance, is the regulars' pressure valve. Every one of them is in our sold-out guides with its directory facts and its alternatives mapped. The strategic point generalizes: in a block-release system, the second-best campground in the same release is not a consolation prize — it is a separate, softer market opening at the same minute.
The date-math most people get wrong
Five months ahead of a mid-month release produces a persistent off-by-one error: campers aiming at a July 4th weekend compute "book in February" and arrive on February 15 ready for battle — correct — but campers aiming at, say, July 20 compute the same February and miss that their date sits in the next block (July 15 – August 14), released March 15. The blocks are anchored to the 15th, not to calendar months. Circle the block your first night falls in; the release that matters is that block's, and multi-week trips spanning a block boundary are won in two separate mornings. It is the single most common Yosemite booking error we encounter, and it costs nothing to avoid — the table above is the whole fix.
Watch it with itOpened
The 15th is the loudest morning. Cancellations are the quiet one.
Proof, from our own scanners: 27 confirmed openings at Upper Pines since Oct 29, 2026 — each one re-verified before logging. See the live cancellation index.
Watch Upper Pines openingsFree to start. We never book, hold, or resell — you book it yourself, in your own account, at the normal price. Fees pay for monitoring; openings are first-come and cannot be guaranteed.
Frequently asked questions
Do Yosemite campgrounds ever release on other days?
The Valley block release is the 15th. Tuolumne Meadows uses the 15th too, two months out for half its sites. Crane Flat and similar smaller campgrounds use two-week rolling windows. Individual listings always govern — check the exact campground's Recreation.gov description.
How fast do Yosemite Valley sites sell out on the 15th?
Peak blocks (June–August) can clear their best sites in minutes. The full month doesn't vanish instantly — shoulder dates and less-famous campgrounds linger — but a Saturday in July should be treated as a seconds-long event.
I missed my block entirely. Is the trip dead?
No. Between the 15-minute cart recycle on release morning and cancellations all season, Valley inventory returns constantly. Upper Pines is the most productive cancellation market in our live log.
Does itOpened book Yosemite sites for me?
No — nobody legitimately can. We watch the official calendar every 2.5 minutes and text you when a matching site opens; you book it yourself, in your own account. See the methodology page.
Sources
- itOpened drop-day calendar research (marketing/drop-calendar.md), compiled Oct 30, 2026 from NPS Yosemite pages and Recreation.gov listing rules: Valley campgrounds release one-month blocks on the 15th at 7:00 a.m. PT, five months ahead (full release/arrival table); Tuolumne Meadows releases half its sites two months ahead on the 15th; Crane Flat runs two-week rolling windows at 7:00 a.m. PT.
- Recreation.gov RIDB official directory export (Oct 28, 2026): Upper Pines campground record (235 sites) and Yosemite campground listings.
- itOpened production scanner logs, Oct 29–30, 2026: Upper Pines led the house watch registry in confirmed openings in the log's first nights (running totals on the cancellation index).
Every figure in this article traces to one of the sources above. If a number isn't sourced, we don't print it.
Last updated 2026-10-30.