McPadden: Crowds yes, but no chaos in Yosemite

Yosemite National Park Superintendent Ray McPadden says attendance this year is running at least 12 percent higher overall, with about 4.7 million visitors expected by the end of the year.

June visitation was about 20 percent higher than average. If those numbers hold, it would be the second busiest year on record, behind 2016 when more than 5 million people visited the park.

And Yosemite’s top boss is just fine with that.

“Our entrance lines are moving faster than ever. We’re setting speed records,” McPadden said last week.

McPadden said there have been only two days with long delays, that were totally predictable, and both were over the Memorial Day Weekend.

Even during peak periods on Saturday morning, McPadden claimed the line is moving three times faster with an average wait time of 30 minutes at the Highway 41 South Entrance and 10 to 15 minutes at the Highway 140 Arch Rock Entrance.

“The reality is the majority of time there is no wait to get into the park,” he said.

McPadden’s remarks came during a July 9 presentation to Yosemite Gateway Partners, a group of tourism and hospitality leaders from Madera, Tuolumne, Mono and Mariposa counties.

‘Ray’s World’

The superintendent’s rosy, all is fine optimism is in stark contrast to a steady drumbeat of national headlines warning of chaos, congestion and overcrowding in Yosemite.

California’s two U.S. Senators wrote a letter this month to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum criticizing the decision to eliminate the vehicle reservation system.

For his part, McPadden appears unbothered by the headlines or the growth in visitation.

“I think generally that’s a good thing. There can be too much visitation, for the record. But what we’re seeing here, the post Covid trend, is gradual increases, and they’re easier to adjust to than rapid, dramatic changes,” McPadden said.

In lieu of hard data to defend his position, McPadden offered a picture and an anecdote.

The anecdote was from Memorial Day 2025, shortly after he was appointed interim superintendent, when the park still had a vehicle reservation system.

McPadden was helping out at the South Entrance, checking for reservations, when a California family in an old pickup pulled up and he had to refuse entry because they didn’t have a reservation.

“It was confusion, surprise and shock,” he said of the visitor’s reaction.

“He pleaded, he begged, he tried to bribe me. For the record, I did not accept. And then he just got really pissed. Right?”

“And this guy cussed at me in ways that I have not heard since the Army. I was actually pretty impressed. An English teacher would call it a run-on sentence,” he joked.

Then, he got serious.

“I’m asking my staff to do this every day. Right? And the other thing I thought was, is this absolutely worth it? Is this absolutely necessary?”

The picture he offered was purportedly from July 3, showing three cars along a long stretch of what appeared to be Northside Drive.

“On Friday, July 3, the park is full. Eleven thousand cars in the park. This is what you’re going to see. Summer in Yosemite,” McPadden said while narrating the bucolic image.

There were some titters and eye rolls in the audience. Some were not buying it.

Yosemite Gateway Partners is generally friendly turf for McPadden. It is a group that earlier this year literally applauded his decision to eliminate vehicle reservations.

But even among this crowd, some questioned the accuracy of McPadden’s assessments.

One incredulous attendee, speaking off the record to preserve relationships, called it, “Ray’s World,” and suggested the superintendent was creating his own alternative reality, not unlike other leaders in the Trump Administration.

‘Bear facts’

McPadden tacitly acknowledged his critics, saying he is “not a visitation crazed superintendent,” while claiming resources in the park are still being protected.

As evidence, he cited fewer bears killed by cars, with nine bears killed by this point last year, compared to six so far in 2026.

But those may be selective bear facts. There are indications bears are becoming more aggressive in seeking food.

According to statistics published in Yosemite National Park’s Daily Report, just a few days before McPadden’s remarks, there have been 34 “bear incidents” in 2026, a 26 percent increase from 2025.

Most of the incidents involved Yosemite black bears obtaining human food. There were 14 such incidents in the last two weeks.

McPadden insisted the meadows in Yosemite Valley are in good shape despite social media pictures that show cars parked off roadsides on bare ground, off the blacktop.

“This is an engineered environment,” McPadden said, describing it as cut and fill roadwork.

“We sort of messed with this whole corridor to build this road and establish a raised road bed,” he said.

It is not a resource problem, he said, but rather an aesthetics issue.

“We’re not gonna stress too much about this, but where we are seeing it, we’re controlling it” with traffic barriers, he said.

McPadden said search and rescues are perhaps up slightly, but are relatively flat, depending on the time frame. He did not provide any actual data from 2026.

In 2025, Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) had 247 incidents, including 18 technical rescues, three searches and recoveries, and 13 fatalities (eight accidental, four natural and one suicide).

Nevada Fall death

There were notably issues McPadden all but refused to talk about, a distinct break from his usual candor.

He would not discuss in any detail how the park handled the aftermath of the death of 22-year-old Josue Alfaro, who went over Nevada Fall on June 20.

It took four days for the park to confirm it was actually a fatality, and only after The Washington Post reported on a new U.S. Department of the Interior policy memo that prohibits national park staff from confirming deaths or details about severe injuries.

A spokesperson for the Department of Interior disputed The Washington Post account, calling it a false narrative and a “significant mis-characterization of the department’s guidance.”

Asked by the Mariposa Gazette if he had second thoughts about how the park handled the situation, McPadden said he couldn’t talk about “open investigations.”

“Our first priority is dealing with the issue itself, and I think we did that very effectively,” McPadden said.

When the Gazette pointed out the question was about media policy, and how social media and witness accounts filled the information vacuum left by the park, McPadden demurred and said he would discuss it one on one.

Approached after the meeting, McPadden asked, “What’s the upside?” in bringing attention to fatalities.

When it was suggested it is about transparency and credibility, McPadden brushed aside the sentiment and declined to answer any more questions on the matter.

Ranger numbers

McPadden was also asked about the number of YNP rangers who have been cut from park staff in the last year and a half.

“Our staff is very healthy. We’ve been hiring aggressively since last fall,” McPadden said.

“We’re getting the support and help at really all levels of government. People want to see Yosemite be successful,” he added.

Since January 2025, the National Park Service has lost a quarter of its permanent workforce, more than 4,000 employees, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. The group said the reduction in the workforce was accomplished through mass terminations, early retirements and deferred resignations.

McPadden insisted that there have been no firings or authorized reduction in force, and called news accounts of short staffing “old news.”

When pressed for actual numbers of park rangers in 2025 versus 2026, he said, “We are not discussing staffing levels.”

“I think that exceeds the level of detail we need to have a conversation around,” he said.

A.I. and real time information

McPadden’s broader point remains: The park is sometimes judged on its worst days, not its average day.

That is especially true for what can attract national media, and what in turn captures clicks and social media virality.

McPadden wants the park to be better at sharing real time information with visitors about parking availability and traffic.

There was a discussion earlier in the day from two rangers who are looking to use A.I. and other tools to automate real time conditions in the park.

“We don’t want to have Yosemite be a black box,” he said.

Locals have certainly learned of various hacks about when and where to visit to avoid the Yosemite’s worst crowds. McPadden suggested those ideas should be more widely shared and circulated.

McPadden said his goal is to “get the most from what we have,” and to “get more visitors comfortably into the park.”

He said they are taking advantage of every paved surface and suggested his own hack: The equestrian stables at Curry Village.

“So, pro tip, top secret,” he told the group.

“There’s a sweet parking lot up there.”

Future of Wawona Hotel

Charlotte Gibb, a landscape photographer from Wawona, asked about the fate of “our beloved” Wawona Hotel.

“I think demolition starts in two weeks,” McPadden joked to nervous laughter. The joke did not appear to land with everyone in the room.

The Wawona Hotel closed in December 2024 after a roof replacement project revealed serious structural issues.

The park is still waiting for an engineering assessment, which is underway, but McPadden said the main lodge building has the most serious structural issues.

“The worst case scenario is that it needs to be basically taken down to the studs,” he said.

To do that, McPadden said would cost tens of millions of dollars and its money that would likely have to come from a U.S. Congressional earmark.

“We generally don’t have, like say $50 million lying around,” McPadden said.

He said if that is the scenario, there is some discussion of opening up the other two buildings, but not the main lodge, while the project awaits funding.

McPadden, serious this time, said the park and its concessionaire, Yosemite Hospitality, “would love to see it running again.”

“As soon as we have the engineering assessment, we can sort of dive into what the options are,” he said.