Summerdale Campground

I was so lucky with getting a spot in the Summerdale Campground. I had originally planned to drive up and just camp on a Forest Service Road outside the park ... specifically the one just south of Fish Camp, but when I turned up the chosen dirt road there was a fully developed resort there! The whole area is very developed and the dirt road idea wasn't going to play.

With no further plans, I decided to drive into Wawona, to the National Park Reservation Service to try to get a spot in one of the N.P. campgrounds. On the way, just before entering the park, I noticed this little campground nestled off the side of the road, so on a whim turned into it and checked it out. The campground had quite a few spots available at that time ... around noon I'd say, and it was pretty, so I marked it down for further consideration. But I decided to go ahead and enter the park and go to Wawona to check out the availability there.

When I got to the Wawona Reservation Center .. a few miles inside the park ... after a few phone calls and some waiting around, the rangers were able to dig up only a single site in the park ... not in the valley as I'd hoped but next to the bathrooms at the Wawona campground. We're talking about tents every 10-12 feet. It didn't take me long to realize that the little campground I had passed up was the best alternative.

So I doubled back to the little campground, called Summerdale and camped there. When I got back to Summerdale, I selected an available space, in a row along the river, and began to setup camp. As I was doing that, the party occupying what was easily recognized as the best site in the campground (isolated by itself at the end of the loop) packed up and LEFT! After some quick conferring with the camp host, I found that I could get that site for the next two nights ... Wed and Thurs just before memorial day weekend. So I grabbed it!

It was right next to a wonderful little stream ... with a bunch of active Beaver dams. It was so nice that, even tho it was only early afternoon and I was only miles from Yosemite Valley, I decided to spend the rest of the day at the Summerdale campground. I went on a nice little evening hike around a bend in the River to a little meadow. This also gave me a chance to be good and rested and make plans for the trip to Glacier Point and Yosemite Valley the next day. On the evening hike I found this odd piece of wood. It's lying on the picnic table in the above picture. Not only had some beaver cut the log off in two places, they had also eaten two notches in the remaining piece. It looked like a little beaver totem. Eerily so. Almost as if the beaver was trying to tell me something ... an attempt at self expression he he he. So I kept the piece of wood throughout the trip and it now resides in my backyard! It'll show up in a few other pictures.

While at Summerdale, I met a nice couple, Conrad and Bev, from Jay Maine, and during the evening campfire there was a rustle from up the hill behind us, and more than a single "CRACK" as the beaver(s) worked on their homes. I think they were a little put out with us, especially as we would crack wood for the fire, there would be rustling. Maybe they thought we were gonna build our own dam :-) I was also wondering if there wasn't one beaver out there pissed off cuz we stole that special piece of wood :-) In the end I decided it was ok to take the piece of wood, as long as I treated it with respect.

I stayed two nights in Summerdale. It rained the morning of the second night. Starting about 4:00 a.m until about 8:00 a.m. ... Not super hard, but steady, and Boy was I comfy in the camper. I put the furnace on 55-60 and it came on a few times during the night and morning. I woke with the rain pitter pattering on the roof of the van, and the sound of the river flowing right outside my door. As I was getting up one of the neighbors casually walked over to the river and came back about 5 minutes later with a 14" trout. I said to myself ... "hmmmmmmmmmmm". My neighbor's name was Curtis, and although he set me up (and gave me a bottle of the right color power bait!) I only fished for a little while, didn't catch anything, and it was time to go.

Continue onto the next page of my Yosemite Trip ..