If you have not booked a site, then lining up (early, very early) for a Camp 4 site is probably your best option. Good way to meet people, too. No tent should not be too much of a risk in June.
Gavo is correct, the rangers there do fairly regularly sweep the common unofficial bivy spots and hand out fines like they are perfume samples in the Myers entrance. I would have thought the Camp 4 boulders would be a spot they patrol fairly regularly. Sounds like Neil has been OK there, though?
That said, I've bivied at the base of El Cap a few times without trouble (usually to get an early start on walls). Probably a good way to get a terminal velocity rock to the head, of course.
If you know exactly when you'll be there trying to book a site at one of the Pines sites is an OK option; they are usually booked out well in advance but if you spend a bit of time hitting "refresh" on the site often someone will cancel (I spent many productive days at work in the States doing just that :-) ). You will be stuck in the middle of RV Hell, though.
There are probably student/backpacker places about. The only one I have been to is the Yosemite Bug, which is OK but is a ways out of the valley, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless they have a regular shuttle bus.
Plenty of free camp sites just outside the park in the forestry land (e.g., off Hardin flat road), but without a car (and even with one) that's a pain to get back into the park each day. |