My wife and I were all set for the next leg of our Big Travel Year, our first visit to Yosemite National Park.
We had booked a room in the park at the iconic Ahwahnee Hotel, a place so popular I had to make the reservation a year ago. But in the last two weeks, we’ve received several emails alerting us to an ongoing construction project which would impact our stay and affect dining in its historic restaurant by essentially turning it into a buffet — with food brought in from a temporary kitchen outside the hotel through makeshift tunnels.
Naturally, we weren’t happy about those updates. But our desire to finally get to Yosemite (after cancelling last year because of nerve damage to one of my feet) made us think we could probably deal with the issues and not let them ruin our stay. I’m not even going into the issues caused by Trump’s cutbacks to National Park Service personnel, which certainly wouldn’t make the experience any better.
But then Martha saw a story by Julie Brown Davis on SFGate.com which revealed a disgusting reality:
Obtained Friday in a Freedom of Information Act request by SFGATE, the report is a 2024 annual performance review of Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of Aramark Corporation. The company has a 17-year contract that began in 2016 to operate and maintain the hotels, restaurants, gift shops and other attractions at Yosemite. For years, however, the company has been failing to meet the expectations of the National Park Service.
Rodent activity, improper food storage, lapses in facility maintenance and other public health concerns are among the pervasive issues called out in the report. The park service also dings Yosemite Hospitality for failing to conduct inspections.
Yosemite Hospitality received an overall “unsatisfactory” rating. That’s the lowest possible rating and a downgrade from previous years; in 2023, 2022, 2019 and 2018, Yosemite Hospitality received a “marginal” rating in its annual review.
We already knew how bad Aramark was at managing eating establishments within national parks, having had very disappointing experiences in their restaurants at Acadia and Badlands earlier this year. But we didn’t think it would get this bad:
The list of problems documented in the 2024 annual performance review is lengthy. Five food establishments received “marginal” ratings: Degnan’s Kitchen, May Lake High Sierra Camp, Curry Village Bar 1899, the Wawona Hotel and Base Camp Eatery. The park service’s Office of Public Health also recommended that Yosemite Hospitality shut down food service facilities on five occasions, after receiving multiple complaints, including about rodent activity.
Rodent infestations have been an ongoing nuisance throughout the park, with issues documented in both the 2023 and 2024 reviews….
At the Ahwahnee, public health officials documented food safety issues and rodent infestations in the bar and kitchen. Employees reported food contamination issues from rodents at the end of May in the kitchen ceiling above food preparation areas, the report cites. Rodents were also seen in the Ahwahnee Bar, which health inspectors shut down multiple times last year, starting in June after several employees got sick from chemicals that were used to clean up after the rodents.
By that point, we were well past our tolerance of rodent mentions (acceptable = no more than zero) and sadly decided to call off our plans. I wonder how many other people are having their Yosemite vacations ruined by this news. We were able to cancel our flights, rental car, and park tours with full refunds, but Martha is still working on convincing Aramark to give us our room deposit back.
Could we find accommodations elsewhere in Yosemite? Well, the park’s other main hotel, the Wawona, is closed until further notice, and we’re not going to set up a tent on a campsite. Even if there are vacancies at motels outside the park, we’d have to deal with backups caused by the heavy influx of other visitors driving into Yosemite every day.
In other words, there aren’t any good alternatives, so we have taken Yosemite off our bucket list entirely. Rats!