Ellery Lake

One of the biggest challenges to visiting Yosemite National Park is finding a place to sleep!
This year, many of the campgrounds and even one of the lodges were still closed in July on account of snow! There has also been a big scam with the online booking for campgrounds - someone bought up all the Yosemite campsites within minutes of the website opening - and then they were scalping them at outrageous prices on Craigslist (I heard the story on NPR).
I had carefully researched campgrounds on the outer fringes of the park. We knew it would be nearly impossible to find a spot, but we timed our arrival around noon (check out time for campgrounds). Even though the sign at Ellery Lake Campground said it was full, we took a chance and drove in to look around. Surprisingly, there were only 14 spots in the entire campground, but there were two open ones!
We felt very lucky to have a place to pitch our tent. And it was a beautiful spot, too! These pictures were taken at dawn the morning we left.