extended stay in the valley how to?

The drive from the Valley to free, legal camping on forest land is definitely not 10 minutes!

If you're going to have a car, it'd be worth your while to explore some more of the Sierra besides Yos Valley and Tuolumne. Get a high sierra guidebook of some sort and feast on the best range in the west. Nothing like a long, loose, exposed ridge climb. Have fun.

I looked up what this Chongo character would have to say about it and I found this:

"Trying to be bitchin can come at the risk of being instead, a complete fool. But, not trying at all, and hence never risking being a fool, can come at the price of never being bitchin even once."

If you haven't read about Chongo, here's a recent article.

Pilfered from this MP thread.

--Marc

There is a 14 day limit at camp 4 if i am not mistaken. How many days between stays do you have to have before you can do another 2 week stay?
Can you just max out the 14 days then leave for a day or 2 and come back for 2 more weeks?

The 14 day limit is for nights in any Yosemite Valley campground, per year. I don't know if days in the Tuolumne Meadows campgrounds apply against the same limit.

So if you stay in the Valley for an extended period of time, you can't be registered in a campground more than 14 nights. You will need to park your van someplace and get your food into a bear box.

Technically, you should have a wilderness permit when bivouacing on a wall, but it is not normally enforced (so nobody gets them).

It's shorter to drive out of the park when in Tuolumne - about 15 minutes from Lembert Dome to the boundary at Tioga Pass (then a bit more to camping spots).

As others have mentioned, heat and crowds in Yosemite Valley during the summer make it less than ideal. You should consider visiting other places like Tuolumne, Lover's Leap, Donner Summit, Calaveras Dome, Southern Yosemite, and the Needles (Sequoia National Forest).

Amateurs...

Lots of ways. Stay your 14, move and come back. Do a wall. Albeit this was 20 years ago, but I had a friend who got to stay longer if he picked up trash in Camp 4. Go to the Meadows for a couple of weeks. While the campground there requires reservations, they're almost always spots available if you show up first thing in the morning to claim the no shows. If not, head down Tioga Pass to CGs there. While summers can be hot in the Valley, its' still doable. BTW, the bears in the Meadows are just as bad as the Valley, especially if you camp on the outer perimeter of the CG, so don't let that be a deciding factor.

There are lots of other methods but I don't want to post hear because you never know whose reading this.

Wolfski wrote:There is a 14 day limit at camp 4 if i am not mistaken. How many days between stays do you have to have before you can do another 2 week stay? Can you just max out the 14 days then leave for a day or 2 and come back for 2 more weeks?

When I was there for three months, I kept changing my name. Two weeks of Jay Knower, two weeks of Sal Paradise, two weeks of Dean Moriarty, etc. It worked for me. I never got hassled.

Jay Knower wrote: When I was there for three months, I kept changing my name. Two weeks of Jay Knower, two weeks of Sal Paradise, two weeks of Dean Moriarty, etc. It worked for me. I never got hassled.

Dude....shhhhhh!