Need Yosemite Travel Beta

I plan to go to Yosemite in late September, 2006 for about 10 days. I would prefer to fly and not rent a car. What is the best route/method to achieve success if coming from Denver.

I see you can fly from Denver to Fresno which seems to be the closet airport to Yosemite (i.e. no airline routes from Denver to Merced), but I can't find any bus service from Fresno to Yosemite.

Any tips greatly appreciated!

An idea:
You can get a ticket from many airlines including Allegiant in Ft Collins to Las Vegas for ~$150 round trip. Taxi to the N. airport and fly to Merced for ~$220 rt on this service:
scenic.com/saws1aboutus.htm
A bus can take you to the valley for ~$15 on yarts:
yarts.com/schedule.html

Or you can just fly to fresno (~$250 rt)and greyhound to yarts in merced(~$15). -about $100 less.

It cost me ~$300+ rt to drive a good gas mileage car ~3 months ago so...

Thanks for the info. A travel agent pointed out the Vegas thing to me with Scenic Airways about an hour ago ... seems kinda pricey.

I am just kinda shocked that you get hosed that bad if you fly into Fresno. Most be a local politics thing. I am sure that Yosemite isn't part of Fresno County and some age old axe grindings have kept the two disassociated.

Whats the hitch hiking like in Cali? If you land in Fresno and don't take the GreyHound to Merced to catch the YARTS to Yosemite are you suicidal to try and hitch directly? Curious.

I did this rental car free a # of years ago... Fly to San Francisco or Oakland.
Cab it or BART it to the Amtrak station in Oakland.
Take train to Yosemite
Train stops in Merced (I Believe)
From there a bus will take you into the valley and drop off at The Lodge.
Short walk to Camp 4.
If you are bringing a stove , send it ahead of time to Yosemite Post office general delivery.
All your camp gear as well , then you can travel light on the plane ( they will not allow a stove on airplane)

Follow up post from my trip to the Valley. After flying into Fresno and taking the local bus to the freeway (i.e. $1 and about 10 mins.) I found the hitch hiking scene to be abysmal. The demographics were all wrong to get a ride out of Fresno. I tucked my tail and returned to the airport and rented a car. Great trip and having the car made life much easier. Takes ~2.5 hours to drive to Camp IV from the airport. Thanks for the beta everyone!

You might want to consider flying into Reno. The airport is right off of 395. If you had a sign that said Yosimite or may be Bishop you could get a ride to the Tioga pass. Anyone going over the pass is probably going to yosimite. This could possibly limit the time acquiring rides. You might also post a note on Craigs list in Reno to see if you could find a ride from someone on the day you arrive. Splitting gas these days can be a big motivating factor and I would rather cough up twenty five bucks and get to where I want to go than stand for hours on a interstate ramp hoping that Ted Bundy does'nt need company on his trip to LA.

fly to fresno
city bus from airport to greyhound station
greyhound to Merced
YARTS bus from Merced to the Valley

When the road to the valley was out the ladies at the Merced welcome center were incredibly nice. Let me stash my haul bags behind the counter, made reservations at a hostel for me, gave me ice cream coupons etc.

I second that about mailing yourself stuff. Mark it general delivery and send it to the Yosemite P.O.