Retreat to the High Sierras (Evergreen Lodge (Yosemite National Park))

Name: helencb

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Product:	Evergreen Lodge (Yosemite National Park)
Date:	18/07/06 (203 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Affordable, Good Guest Facilities

Disadvantages: A little way from Yosemite Village

Finding accommodation for our recent road trip through the High Sierras, encompassing Yosemite National Park, and Lake Tahoe was a challenge, both in terms of finding affordable accommodation, picking a good location, and finding somewhere with availability. I am not one for over-planning, and therefore even a week before we left on our trip, we did not have accommodation for at least five of our ten nights, and accommodation that was available, was typically quite expensive, especially when required for so many nights.

We wanted to spend at least two nights in the Yosemite NP area, after five days in San Francisco, and we intended to drive into the park from picking up our hire car in SF. After far too much web searching, availability checking for my liking we finally settled upon the Evergreen Lodge accommodation situated approximately 8 miles from the Western entrance to Yosemite NP and seven miles up Evergreen Road.

Booking
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I had checked availability via the site www.evergreenlodge.com and received a swift response. Taking procrastination to the extreme, I did nothing, until about midnight the night before I left for the USA, when I decided it might be prudent to book via the telephone. Thankfully they still had some accommodations left to offer me, which I quickly secured with my Amex card, before that got snapped up.

I travelled in June, which is probably still quite early for the summer season, and I strongly recommend that anyone who is intending to visit in July or August secures their accommodation requirements a lot sooner than I did.

Accommodations
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Evergreen Lodge offers self catering lodge style accommodation to its guests and has been established for around 80 years. There are a number of different styles of cabin available, to suit different budgets and family sizes. These include Traditional Cabins (new and old), one bedroom Cottages, and Family Cabins. I wanted a one bedroom cottage, but by the time I tried to book, I was out of luck so we settled on a Traditional Cabin (New). In all honesty, there is not a lot of difference between the two, apart from perhaps when they were last updated, and our cabin consisted of a balcony with seating, a bedroom with double bed and a double sofa bed, and a bathroom with shower. The one bedroom cabin I had hoped for had the benefit of a separate living room and bedroom and a bath rather than a shower. Our rate per night was $169 for the cabin. One bedroom cottages reach $209 in peak season, and the family accommodations peak at £259 per night and have two bedrooms plus living room.

The cancellation policy was fairly standard in that you would forfeit an amount equal to one night’s accommodation. Having got to SF and hearing that a road was closed to SF, I did wonder if we were about to be penalised. Thankfully we were able to reach our accommodation without any problems whatsoever, however had we picked some of the accommodation at the South Entrance, which I had researched, then it might have been a different outcome.

The accommodations were well spaced out, and while technically our balcony was shared, it was still very private.

Checking In
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Check in was acceptable, and we were given the keys to our lodge. The lodges are grouped together in small groups around the estate, and it is possible to drive cars to the doors, although these need to be moved after unloading, for access reasons. There were car parks dotted around the park, although there were probably not quite enough, and there were plenty of cars parked on the main Evergreen Road, which is not a particular problem, other than a few minutes walk back to the lodge itself.

Our lodge itself did not disappoint in any way. The room was comfortable and clean with a very good size bathroom and a welcoming tartan style bedspread over the bed. There was no aircon, but there was a variable speed fan and the patio doors opened but had a mesh to keep the mosquitos out.

Location
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When you are booking accommodation from afar, it is difficult to know exactly where to stay. For me, Evergreen Lodge was ideal. It was about eight miles from the western gate at Yosemite and about 35-40 miles to Yosemite Village, where the majority of accommodation can be found. I think I preferred where we were staying compared to staying in the busier resort of Yosemite Village (although I would not have said no to the Ahwahnee Hotel, which we did visit for an evening meal!). We did also visit areas close to the South Gate, and the Wawona Hotel was also one I considered, but I feel Evergreen was just as well located. In any event it is very close to Hetchy Hetchy Dam, which is a fairly short eight (mildly terrifying) miles from Evergreen.

Camp Facilities
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Evergreen lodge has plenty to offer all kinds of visitors, whether you are on a very active break or on a family break. There is a large recreation room which has free internet and telephone services, as well as board games, pool, and books for general use. There is a large bar/restaurant area, including TV if sports are essential, and a reasonably well stocked shop.

We ate at Evergreen twice and had drinks there too. The Breakfast menu was excellent and was good value for money at around $7 typically, and good quality with excellent choice. They also had a bar area which served evening meals which were reasonable value for money, with my main course of pasta and seafood costing around $20. The bar/restaurant area had a great feel about it, although it could be slightly difficult to get a table if you wanted to eat in the bar rather than the restaurant itself (as we did). Wine was not particularly cheap, especially for my expensive NZ Sauvignon tastes, but then the whole of California seemed expensive for wine and Evergreen was no different here. The shop itself sold coffee and pretzels etc on the run if needed.

Touring
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Although we did not take advantage of this, Evergreen lodge can arrange tours such as sightseeing, hiking, fishing, biking and snow-shoeing and the Recreation Centre is a valuable source of information.

Overall
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I think that Evergreen lodge offered good value for money when compared to other accommodations in the Yosemite NP area, and for the time of year and I believe it would suit most people and would represent better value for money for larger families who could take a family cabin. We had only one problem in that our sofa bed appeared to be infested with some kind of biting insect and if you fell asleep on it for any length of time you were guaranteed to be bitten alive – which was not the case with the bed in the same room, and therefore must be exclusive to the sofa bed and not the room. We did point this out on departure to the staff, who assured us they would address this.

Despite that, I feel that Evergreen Lodge is a great base for exploring Yosemite NP and offers reasonable value for money, given that nothing in this area is ever cheap!

Room Rate $169 for a Traditional Cabin in Wk2 June.

Recommended 4****


(recommended YES despite the Dooyoo Bug)

Summary: Comfortable and value for money accommodation for the Yosemite NP