The High Sierra camps of Yosemite National Park are presented as a premium experience like no other. Situated in a gorgeous landscape high in the Sierra Nevada, the remote camps promise luxury, including cabins, bathrooms, and kitchens for dining comfort.
Hiking the High Sierra camp loop is a bucket-list item that many visitors spend years planning and saving for. But despite the “luxury” label, visitors to these camps frequently face rodent infestations, last-minute cancellations, and inadequate information or food supplies.
The mismanagement of these camps is just one example of how one private company is failing Yosemite National Park while making millions of dollars.
Aramark, the company contracted to manage these camps and other services at Yosemite, has been slammed by the National Park Service (NPS) for its “unsatisfactory” performance for at least a decade. The NPS accused Aramark of mismanaging the high camps, as well as several historic hotels.
Aramark even had its contracts canceled at other national parks for similarly poor service records. Despite these problems, the brand’s contract with Yosemite doesn’t end until 2031. It still manages services in multiple national parks and made hundreds of millions in profits last year alone.
“They’re doing a terrible job, and they’re definitely not up to the standards that they should meet,” said Don Neubacher, who served as superintendent of Yosemite from 2010 to 2016, in a phone interview with GearJunkie. “Everybody I talked to is just really disappointed with the service and the level of quality.”
A Canceled Contract
Founded in 1936 in Philadelphia as a vending machine company, Aramark grew into a larger food service business that now serves over 275 colleges and universities. It also has a long history with the NPS, serving as a concessionaire for multiple parks, including Denali, Glacier Bay, and Mesa Verde. At many of those parks, Aramark manages lodges, shops, and restaurants.
Now a global operator, Aramark posted $18.5 billion in revenue and $326 million in profit in 2025.
Despite its financial success, Aramark has long been chided by the NPS — and not just at Yosemite. Visitors to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area have been criticizing its poor marina management for years.
The company actually lost an NPS contract for Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park. Aramark was supposed to manage services at Crater Lake from 2018 to 2030. But the NPS terminated the contract early in 2024 due to the company’s unsatisfactory performance. Issues included poor facility maintenance, inadequate staff training, unsafe living and working conditions, and reports of sexual assault and harassment among staff. Aramark received a score of 50 (on a scale of 100) for its lackluster operations at Crater Lake.
Staff have also objected to Aramark’s treatment of them in Yosemite. The company moved to remove many workers’ employment rights in January, thereby making it easier to remove them from employee housing.
Bad Report Cards
Each year, the NPS gives a report card to the private companies that manage various services in national parks. The reports identify both successes and ongoing issues, and how to fix them. In the 2023/2024 report for Yosemite Hospitality (an Aramark subsidiary), the NPS gave the company the lowest grade of “unsatisfactory,” with a score of 49 out of 100.
Many concerns revolved around how it managed the other properties in Yosemite Valley (including the Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village). The Ahwahnee had to close down its bar for a brief period in 2024 due to rodent infestations in the ceilings.
At the Wawona Hotel, employees filed an OSHA complaint after being required to remove dead rodents (which carry the risk of hantavirus) without proper personal protective equipment. Other problems included chemical leaks and improper waste management that endangered wildlife.
When it came to the High Sierra camps, there were several other issues. There was a rodent problem in the kitchen at the May Lake camp, which received a “marginal” public health rating. The company failed to complete the required maintenance on the camps as stipulated in the agreed-upon timeline with the NPS.
The NPS also identified issues with planning: “Yosemite Hospitality made the decision to postpone reopening the High Sierra Camps until August 2, 2024. However, the decision was not formally communicated to the NPS until Friday, July 19, 2024, only hours before the site’s scheduled reopening. Consequently, visitors with reservations were given inadequate notice to alter their travel plans or identify alternative lodging accommodations,” the report stated.
Many online forums are filled with furious reports about hikers receiving these last-minute cancellations. Some were on their way to the park when they found out their bucket-list trip was canceled.
A Decade of Problems
Aramark’s performance has been a perennial, years-long issue for the company. The 2016 NPS report cited frequent visitor complaints over Aramark’s customer service and reservation system.
“Visitors stated their phone calls went unanswered and/or their voicemails were not returned in a timely manner. This caused extreme frustration, confusion, disappointment, and uncertainty. Visitors also expressed concern over the lack of knowledge Central Reservations agents had about the High Sierra Camps when they finally did get to talk to a live person. The Central Reservation agents could not answer even the most basic questions about what to expect at the camps. Visitors stated that the agents were friendly, just not knowledgeable,” the report stated.
Aramark also failed to adequately plan deliveries and supplies. Since it is a wilderness area, everything has to be carried in by stock animals. But the report found stock animals that were not young, healthy, or in adequate shape to provide deliveries.
“According to both visitor and staff comments, inadequate food supplies resulted in incomplete or repetitive meal options throughout the season, and food orders were often incorrectly filled which complicated meal planning,” the report said.
“Food deliveries did not include expiration dates or ingredient lists, which hindered the staff’s ability to provide for dietary limitations. A lack of reliable supply deliveries made it extremely difficult for staff to plan for operations at the camps, and traditional amenities such as firewood, traditional High Sierra camp menu availability, clean blankets, washcloths, and pillowcases, and waste removal were impacted or unavailable during the 2024 season.”
My Experience at the High Camps
Aramark’s operational problems at the High Sierra camps fail in two main areas: visitor experience and infrastructure.
Visitor Experience
While preparing for my trip to the High Sierras, I called the phone number provided by Aramark whenever I couldn’t find a necessary piece of information online.
For example, I was curious about the rules regarding leaving my car while I hiked the three-day trail. Two different customer service representatives said it was fine to leave my car at Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, where I would stay the night before I started my hike. But when I went to check in at the lodge, the front desk staff there informed me that was never allowed.
The lot was small, and the lodge welcomed a high volume of guests. So I spent the next hour trying to figure out where it would make logistical sense to leave my car, given my starting and ending points.
When I did arrive at the lodge at 8 p.m., staff informed me that all High Sierra campers had to have dinner at 6 p.m. — an important tidbit that had never been communicated to me. The next day, I learned that, contrary to what was posted online, lunch is not an additional cost. Had I known this, I wouldn’t have bothered to go through the hassle of packing my own.
What’s more, Aramark’s website claims that each camp operates a store that sells snacks, sunscreen, tampons, and other hygiene products. No stores were operating when I did my hike.
To be clear, none of these mistakes ruined my trip. But they did cause unnecessary confusion, hassle, and difficulty in planning. The High Sierra Loop involves strenuous hiking in difficult terrain with steep climbs. Even an experienced backpacker like me needs information to plan and prepare appropriately. So these issues become even more salient for those with less experience.
Infrastructure
In the High Camps of Yosemite, you are supposed to store any food or scented item in a bear box, and never in your tent or cabin. Yet, at the Sunrise camp, none of the bear boxes were functional. They had rusted shut. The camp staff had resorted to piling the guests’ food and toiletries into the camp’s dining room building and blocking the door with a heavy cabinet.
The company’s contract with the NPS mandates that at the camps, “the Concessioner must store all bear attractants in bear-resistant and rodent proof containers when not in use or being consumed.”
It’s worth noting that from 2019 to 2026, the High Sierra camps, which operate only in the summer due to their high elevation, were open during only two of those years. The COVID pandemic accounts for at least one of those seasons. But maintenance and infrastructure issues are the cause of the rest of those closures.
In fact, the camps didn’t open at all in 2022 and 2025, due to issues with potable water. In 2023, they were closed because of severe damage from storms. In 2026, Aramark announced that only three of the five camps would open.
Thus, visitors can only complete 32 miles of the 49-mile loop. No reason was publicly provided. The last time all five camps were open to guests was 2018. Under its contract with NPS, Aramark is “required” to provide overnight accommodations at all five camps.
Former Yosemite superintendent Neubacher said that the High Sierra camps have always been a struggle to manage, given their remote location and the potential impacts of winter storms that occur at those high elevations.
Neubacher cited NPS budget shortfalls as a big part of the problem. The NPS is the party responsible to fix any sewage or water problems, and there simply isn’t enough money to do it. The agency currently faces a $24 billion backlog in deferred maintenance projects.
Aramark declined to speak with me about any aspect of the High Sierra camps. But it’s clear that both the company’s poor performance and a lack of park funding have contributed to the camps’ deterioration. In Neubacher’s eyes, the High Sierra camps aren’t the worst issue at Yosemite. But they matter because they help turn participants into advocates.
“They serve a small segment of the public. But everybody I talked to has done it, loved it, and they became big supporters of wilderness, and we need those people,” he said.
What Now?
Delaware North Company (DNC) had served as the concessionaire at Yosemite for 22 years when its contract was up in 2015. The park only received two bids for the new contract: DNC and Aramark. Aramark offered the better deal on paper, but Neubacher was skeptical from the get-go.
“I read their proposal and there was just a lot of stuff Aramark was never gonna do. I mean, it was just so impractical,” he said.
But ultimately, it wasn’t Neubacher’s job to pick the contractor. The NPS director, with help from a team of financial consultants, makes the final decision, so Neubacher — and Yosemite — ended up with Aramark.
Now, several years into the Aramark contract, the former superintendent said that the company hasn’t lived up to its end of the bargain. He said that DNC did a better job of maintaining the High Sierra camps and was committed to making them a priority. Neubacher said that part of the disparity between the two companies’ operations in the park relates to their very nature. DNC is a privately held company, while Aramark is public.
“[Aramark] needs to push their margins so that they keep their investors happy … That makes a difference,” he said.
I reached out to the NPS several times for this story, and did not receive a response. Aramark’s contract currently lasts until 2031, and Neubacher says it is highly unlikely that the park service will decide to terminate the Yosemite contract early, as it did in Crater Lake.
“Crater Lake pretty much closes down during the wintertime, so you have a transition period. There really isn’t a transition period in Yosemite … Getting somebody [else] to operate it would be almost impossible … It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do a good job and the pressure has to be kept up,” he said.
What Are the Other Options?
I talked to several locals during my time in Yosemite, and many expressed a wish that a local company with ties to the community would run the camps. In their line of thinking, a company that knows the area and terrain and the local network of seasonal workers would not only do a better job of operating the camps logistically, but would also care more about what’s in its own backyard. To them, the decision about whether to open and maintain the camps wouldn’t be just a financial one.
Right now, all of Yosemite’s concessions are packaged together in one massive contract. I asked Neubacher if it would help to split that package up. What if another operator, more specialized in handling the unique challenges of operating remote camps in the wilderness, took over the High Sierra camps, and a hospitality company like Aramark continued to maintain the hotels in Yosemite Valley?
“Logistically, it’s hard to think about breaking it up, but, you know, obviously this didn’t work, so maybe that’s a better thing and maybe there’s a way to break it up,” he said.
With challenges from inclement weather and potential high costs, he suggested it would be better if a nonprofit managed the camps. Given how many staff work on operating the camps (and how financially cash-strapped the NPS is), Neubacher said it’s out of the question that the agency would ever take them over.
A Perfect Storm
The NPS, like many federal agencies, has changed drastically under the Trump administration.
It has lacked a director since President Trump took office. When the White House did finally suggest a new NPS director in early 2026, it was Scott Socha, the head of DNC — the very same company the NPS had kicked out in favor of Aramark. Socha withdrew himself from the nomination after widespread criticism from environmental groups and parks advocates.
The NPS has lost 25% of its staff in recent years, and Yosemite is experiencing record numbers of visitors. Without a timed entry system and adequate staff, Neubacher said there’s no hope of good environmental stewardship.
The current administration is prioritizing the expansion of visitor access over what is best for the land and visitor safety, he said. Couple that with a private corporation focused most on making a profit, and Neubacher believes Yosemite will reach its breaking point.
“There’s less money, less staff, and more visitors … This has been a crying statement for forever,” he said. “When is enough enough at Yosemite?”
