Yosemite Campers News Releases

Tenaya Lake Planning Comments, PART FOUR (4)

15 Oct 2008 04:02:27 GMT

The following is part four (4) of letters sent to Yosemite National Park, as it relates to the park's recent request for comments from the public, associated with the plan to refurbish Tenaya Lake in the park.

Begin quote:

Dear Park Planners:

It is my hope that you receive many public comments, as it relates to the Tenaya Lake Scoping, and that my letters are in good company. I wish to submit one last comment on this subject. I hope that by doing so you will find something useful in what is in fact not my own comments, but a reprint of the famous letter from the late David Brower that was addressed to Yosemite National Park, as it relates to the Yosemite Valley Plan, back in 2000. I believe that it should considered by park planners as a guideline in your current efforts associated with Tenaya Lake. Brower’s letter makes very heart felt and cogent points about not only his passion for camping, but his preference for camping over other kinds of accommodations, such as Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel or its lodges. He makes very clear that experiencing nature by camping offers a unique opportunity that should be available for future generations.

My earlier comments stated that a campground could be constructed at Tenaya Lake in such a way that would offer the potential of a different kind of Yosemite camping experience, in such a way that would offer the lowest of human impacts possible. Though this is my view, this topic is not the purpose of this letter.

This letter is to simply to remind you of David Brower’s relevant comments. His thoughts about the park and its future planning efforts are of the highest relevance to Tenaya Lake specifically. Though his words were associated with the Yosemite Valley Plan, he makes several about Tenaya Lake that are especially germane at this time of the current Tenaya Lake planning effort.

Some of what Mr. Brower made specific reference to, as it relates to Tenaya Lake, is in regards to the changes made during the Mission 66 expansions, which offer an historic record needed at a time when you might be considering what to do next, perhaps to accommodate the next generation of park visitors. As each generation of park planners tend to feel a need to accommodate the pressure put upon the park at every specific period in history, it can sadly be assumed that in the future, park planners will continue to widen and pave roads and parking lots as impacts from ever increasing tourist populations necessitate. Until such time that someone in the park service speaks out, tourism will inevitably increase. When that time comes, perhaps the park service will determine what a park wide “user carrying capacity” study should commence, so that overflow from Yosemite Valley will some day stop impacting Yosemite’s remote areas such as Tenaya Lake and Tuolumne Meadows.

I am submitting his letter to you today, for historic reference, because I believe that no current Tenaya Lake Plan would be complete without Mr. Brower’s words of wisdom. But also, I send this to you to remind you that future historians will judge your decisions on a different scale than we do today, just as historians now criticize decisions made during the Mission 66 period. Please take David Brower’s comments to heart, as follows:

Published on Monday, November 20, 2000 in the San Francisco Chronicle

David Brower on the Yosemite Valley Plan

by David Brower

RIGHT NOW, the National Park Service, which has heretofore cherished Yosemite, seems intent on converting this temple into a profit center, with pricey hotels, scant camping, few modest accommodations, wider roads to field bigger diesel buses, ecological roadside mayhem, atmospheric damage and requiring people who want to celebrate Yosemite Valley to park outside the park in various still unspoiled places that are soon to be paved. This is all to exploit what you can do when you have $200 million or $300 million dollars to spend instead of the discipline former National Park Service Director Newton Drury enjoyed when he said, "We have no money, therefore we can do no harm."

The National Park Service is trying to do too much, too fast in Yosemite, forgetting that protecting the park, not the Yosemite park service revenues, is the most important thing here. It's time it remembered what Yosemite is all about.

Anyone who has been visiting Yosemite for almost 82 years is likely to brag about it, and I do incessantly. I started going to Yosemite in 1918. There were 37,000 visitors that year and I celebrated my sixth birthday camped alongside the railroad that was helping construct an alien dam in Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley. Restoring this lost treasure should be an ongoing part of the park service agenda.

Unbeknown even to many in the National Park Service, Yosemite was the first national park, set aside eight years before Yellowstone, and its mission clearly stated a year later by none other than Frederick Law Olmsted. After he had done his bit for Central Park in New York City, Olmsted came to California and the Fremont Estate to recover and to advise California on how to take care of the best of its nature, including Yosemite.

Mountains have a voice, and Olmsted was one of the first to try to speak for them. He proposed the rights for nature implicit in the national park idea.

"The first requirement is to preserve the natural scenery and restrict within the narrowest limits the necessary accommodation of visitors.

"Structures should not detract from the dignity of the scene. In preventing the sacrifice of anything that should be of the slightest value to visitors to the convenience, bad taste, playfulness, carelessness, or wanton destructiveness of present visitors, would probably yield in each case the interest of uncounted millions to the selfishness of a few."

Thus, in 1864, did an idea born on one coast reach another.

Maybe Olmsted can help all of us, including the National Park Service, remember what the national park idea is all about. It was probably not just to let people who can afford the Ahwahnee or Yosemite lodges to luxuriate there, but to be a place to celebrate a bit of equity in a magical place meant to be shared with the current brief tenants of the Earth, but most importantly, one held in trust for the "uncounted millions" not yet born. The greatest luxury in Yosemite comes from what the Valley has to say, not just from its structures. If Old Dave Brower wants to go slumming at the Ahwahnee, OK. But maybe his kids and friends would rather camp, as he used to.

I am deeply concerned these days about Yosemite. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that national parks were not set aside to create profit centers for concessionaires nor to pad National Park Service construction budgets for park officials to shortchange the future. Large crowds are seasonal, but new roads, hotels and parking lots despoil the park year-round.

I saw the trouble begin with an earlier development policy, Mission 66, when then-National Park Service Director Connie Wirth went to the American Automobile Association, not to conservationists, for advice. What he let happen to Yosemite in the controversy over rerouting the Tioga Road was a disaster, which the Sierra Club let happen by not opposing it strongly enough. Park service people should have been jailed for what they destroyed at Tenaya Lake, just as I would now urge long prison sentences for engineers who molest roads until they are wide enough to accommodate big diesel buses. Left alone, the park service would get rid of Yosemite's autumn color with 2-stroke leaf blowers.

In the 1950s, my attempt to save Yosemite from what photographer Ansel Adams described as National Park Service vandalism at Tioga Pass was enthusiastic enough to bring Horace Albright, second director of the National Park Service, to San Francisco to try to get me fired as executive director of the Sierra Club.

He was not successful, but neither was I successful in stopping the National Park Service from demolishing Tenaya's granite domes. I have had more than one park ranger lament how right we were to have opposed that project and how our alternative would have been better. We have seen this pattern repeated in the Merced River Canyon, where Judge Anthony Ishii confirmed the righteousness of our protest against illegal National Park Service vandalism of the river, but mostly too late.

When I see the war-zone that used to be the Merced River Gorge in Yosemite, I am furious that the perpetrators, who pushed this project through in violation of the National Environmental Policy and the Wild and Scenic Rivers acts, are allowed to continue their shoddy planning in the rest of the park rather than taking some time out to rethink.

On the contrary, no one is taking time out and no one is rethinking and none of the lawbreakers is in jail, or even repentant.

The Merced River Plan was rushed through using old wildlife data (the wildlife situation may have changed a bit since one bank of the river was paved by the National Park Service). The river plan was not meant to be a formality; it was intended to be the biological foundation of planning efforts for the entire valley, Judge Ishii's statements in the courtroom indicate that he would concur. If the National Park Service is not violating the letter of his ruling, releasing the draft valley plan before the river plan was finalized, it certainly is violating the spirit of Ishii's call for sound planning. I call on the park service to submit a complete plan for the Merced River before asking us to comment on a draft Yosemite valley plan. The National Park Service seems to be drunk on appropriations money. This time, I don't have another 40 years to wait for the park service to realize their mistake. It's time to wake up, and for God's sake, no more construction on the river between the Highway 120 junction and Yosemite Valley!

This brings us to the next major disaster contained in the alternatives of the valley plan. Why did that road need to be widened (other than to spend some of the congressional cash)?

In a private statement to me in a meeting last year, Regional National Park Service Director John Reynolds said that the road had to be widened because buses were a necessary piece of Yosemite's transportation future. He repeated this once to the press, but has been denying it ever since. The emphasis on diesel buses in the draft Yosemite Valley plan force me to infer that he was telling the truth the first time. With both the Environmental Protection Agency in California and Washington, D.C., currently cracking down on diesel as a carcinogen and a massive air pollution problem, it is unconscionable for the National Park Service to advocate a dramatic increase in diesel traffic in Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite gets more pollution than it needs already from the Central Valley without creating a new toxic menace locally. Until clean-fuel buses can make the grade, we are stuck with diesel buses, which is far dirtier than gasoline- burning modern cars, even per passenger-mile. The Central Valley is beginning to look to rail as a solution to its air problems, and I strongly encourage the National Park Service to climb aboard this statewide effort, which can be part of the solution for Yosemite as well.

Finally, let's put the brakes on any new parking lots. Parking is currently sited in areas long-since developed while the draft Yosemite Valley plan suggests that we pave over huge lots in unspoiled areas of the park so diesel buses can serve expanded hotels in the valley on widened roads. All of the alternatives are based on the assumption that it is inevitable that we will continue to try to pack as many people into the park as possible at any given time.

Congestion problems are relatively easy to solve; as Ansel Adams said, "When the theater's full, they don't sell lap-space."

National parks were created to be a natural haven from the world of mindless development and endless growth. Placing no limit on the number of current visitors who can visit the park at one time is a violation of the Organic Act and a breach of our contract with future generations. This may be easy to miss with so much fee-demonstration-project money pouring into Yosemite, but it is your job as the appointed guardians of Yosemite not to miss it.

So skip the hotel expansion, replace lost camping sites instead, and if you want parking lots, limit them to impacted nonriparian areas where other structures are being removed. As for restoring Yosemite, I'm glad the park service is at least aware of the concept, but I don't see much restoration in the plan that isn't undone by destruction elsewhere. That's not restoration, it's called mitigation, as your highway building friends can tell you.

If you widen Southside Drive and pull out other roads, there is no net ecological gain, especially if the other roads are not actually removed. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and others have said that the future of the parks is in restoration. I heartily agree and will begin applauding the moment that the National Park Service gets done using this kind of language as green-wash for half-baked development plans like the draft Yosemite Valley plan.

End quote.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this letter.

Sincerely,

Mark Sutherlin, Truckee, CA

End quote.

For a forum where you can comment on this and other letters in this blog, go to http://www.yosemitecampers.com/

Tenaya Lake Scoping Study

27 Sep 2008 16:04:42 GMT

Text from letters sent to Yosemite National Park Service during the Tenaya Lake Scoping period, as follows:

Regarding Tenaya Lake, there is almost nothing whatsoever that needs fixing. You would be doing Yosemite justice and give the public more trust in you if you were to tell the Yosemite Fund that their money is not required for improvements at Tenaya Lake. At least, I would be impressed.

That is, I should say, unless you might consider using some of their money to replace a few of the drive-in and walk-in campsites that were removed from the area in haste, during an ill-conceived era when the thought that the only way to improve something is to remove something. My thoughts on this as follows:

My recommendation would be for no more than 12 or 15 campsites, which should be separated by at least 75 to 100 feet between them, located on the west end of the lake in the forest, not near the lake. They should be available by way of a lottery system only. They should epitomize the essence of what a great Yosemite camping experience should be for those who car-camp. Let them bring their water in. Believe me, they won’t mind if they are lucky enough to get one of the very few campsites via the lottery. The lottery could be designed around the same criteria as the High Sierra Camp lottery. All sewage would be removed, and all campsites would be at least 200 feet from any water, such as Tenaya Creek, etc.

The roads should not be graded rarely. They should not be paved. An initial bed of about six inches of gravel is all that is needed. After that, it should be covered with a seasonal layer of wood chips, preferably cedar. The restrooms should be modern but portable outhouses that could be removed in the winter. Or, they could be the new style of vault toilets with hand sanitizer dispensers, like in many of the Forest Service campgrounds these days.

Campfires should be restricted to very small campfire rings. I recommend they be like those used in the Forest Service Campsites in the Twin Lakes area outside of Bridgeport, CA, where a large fire is not an option due to fire ring size constraints. For that matter, you wouldn’t even have to allow campfires.

A real park Ranger should be required to walk the campsite in the evenings, talking to people about Yosemite related things, and bear issues, while inviting them to his 8pm campfire talk, where intelligent Yosemite related discussions occur, without such things as songs about where “Buffalo do roam and skies are clear all day”. Many people don’t go to campfires because they are geared towards children. Not that that is a bad thing, I’m just suggesting something that is geared for adults for a change.

There should be a rule that no electronic music be allowed, i.e. boom boxes, car speakers, etc. I feel that such a rule should be enforced in all campgrounds park wide. If they want to hear music, tell them to bring earphones. Quite-time should be strictly enforced and there should no pets allowed. The goal should be to develop a place where car campers can experience a very natural camping experience in a small campground, atypical of a National Park, in a place like Tenaya Lake that is beautiful beyond description.

On the east end of the lake, there could be an equivalent number of walk-in campground. I recommend it be named after Chief Tenaya himself, where only about 12 or 15 walk-in camp sites are available, also on a lottery system only. There should be a small central campfire circle, perhaps located somewhere between these two campgrounds, maybe on that peninsula where day-use picnic tables are now, with a few logs for benches. Or, maybe one on either end, where a ranger could have talks for both of the campgrounds, but on opposite days during the summer.

Campfires could be an opportunity to teach people about Yosemite’s Native American history, John Muir’s writings, flora, fauna and geological and native American history; things like that, with the goal of imparting a unique Yosemite camping experience that brings people closer to nature. It’s an ideal place for camping, as there are spectacular hiking trails in the area that lead to parts of the park that people otherwise do not see unless they backpack. Such a campground location could demonstrate to the public where the future of Yosemite camping could be headed.

Otherwise, if you’re not interested in doing any of that, there are no improvements needed to, or around, Tenaya Lake. We use the Tioga entrance exclusively in season. We have walked around and kayaked the lake many times over my 58 years. We are very familiar with it. No improvements please. Improvements have a tendency to draw people to a place. Whatever you do, please don’t make the mistake of doing to Tenaya Lake what you did at the Lower Falls area, or even the Fern Springs area, where you did things only because you had too much money to spend.

There is no need to put in any granite or concrete curbs anywhere. No cedar fences or paved walk ways. No flush toilets. No added parking areas. If there are too many cars, let them keep driving. And, absolutely NO tour bus parking.

Any ideas you have to control congestion and traffic should not be addressed here in the Tenaya Lake scoping study. In no way should Tenaya Lake be redesigned in such a way that it could “accommodate all who want to come”, as Dave Mihalic used to like to say about Yosemite in general. Unlike Mike Tollefson, who said he “didn’t want to turn anyone away”, it’s time to turn people away if it means the Yosemite experience is one that includes crowds, fences, paved trails, more tour buses, etc. If by “improvements” you mean adding more infrastructure in any way, don’t do it.

It was probably a mistake for Steve Mather to put the Tioga Road through there in the first place, blasting though untouched granite, etc. All traffic and crowding issues should be mitigated at the gate, and only at the gate, with a strictly enforced User Carrying Capacity limit on how many people are allowed to come into the park via day-tripping, on a day when established quotas are reached.

There should be a scoping study for those quotes separate from this, and before this study is done. That study should determine how to address issues that lead up to establishing a quota, how to manage the quota, and then, lastly, how to make improvements such as these at Tenaya Lake only after the concept of less crowding and restricted traffic has been not only addressed, but put into place. Then, and only then would anyone be able to know how to deal with human impacts, once the level of human impacts are known.

However you determine how to address way to deal with who is allowed into the park when the park reaches capacity levels should be addressed in that scoping study, where the rules and regulations could be discussed and debated with public input in order to find the best solutions for the entire park, not individual areas such as this. Otherwise, you will get spill over from Yosemite Valley.

Take a long look at Fern Springs and tell me you don’t see similarities of the Lower Falls project, but on the smallest of scales. You have taken what wasn’t a big attraction, and made it into one, by putting added pavement, city like curbs, and Cedar fences to make the area look as unnatural as a city park. Plus, you created a look that detracts from the natural scene by ruining the natural setting of the place. You took a place that in history was a tiny little stage stop along the side of the road where people could cool off after the long dusty carriage ride behind a team of horses, and turned it into a man made side show, complete with a bus stop. Do you expect tourist buses to stop here too? This location was once a place without any unnatural amenities. It was popular to those who knew of it, while most people drove on by, as it should be. You have made it into a fenced off, curb lined touristy eyesore along the side of the road. That is exactly what you did at the Lower Falls area, but on much more massive scale. This cannot be what you are allowed to do at Tenaya Lake. Tenaya Lake needs fewer improvements, not more.

From my observations, it seems that the Yosemite Fund’s donation money is burning a hole in the pocket of park planners. There are many good projects the Yosemite Fund has contributed to, but these infrastructure rebuilds, designed to make it so that the park can accommodate more and more people as the worlds population continues to increase, are not right.

Why is it that you feel a need to improve Tenaya Lake? Tenaya Lake does not need to become a new and improved tour bus destination complete with curbs, parking lots, Cedar fences, paved trails and all the rest. Instead, you should be finding ways to discourage traffic (i.e. “overcrowding”) at some of these otherwise pristine and special places that Yosemite offers. You should be dealing with congestion at the gate with a restrictive user carrying capacity that limits the amount of people allowed to come into the park on any given day, when too many people push the park’s limits of carrying that capacity.

A park wide User Carrying Capacity study should take place first, before you do anymore so-called “improvements”, with all of the public comments and debates that normally go along with such a study, well before you pave the way for more and more people that are surely going to come. This needs to be addressed now, so that the park won’t one day have to potentially accommodate ten times the amount of people it does currently. Show some guts and address the tough decisions of a park wide User Carrying Capacity before you accept Yosemite Fund money to rebuild things that will obviously lead to more overcrowding.

The following are words which were emailed to me yesterday from a good friend who also just happens to be a very well known Yosemite Park historian, whose name is inside many of your books in the Yosemite Park Library, dating all the way back into the 1950s. For now, his name will remain anonymous. He commented, because I asked him to review the Tenaya Creek project. I sent him a link and he wrote back. Some of his words are as follows:

Begin quote:

"My opinion, the NPS is now in the construction business not preservation. They have too much money to spend, they ought to put the campgrounds back and leave the rest the hell alone. I hate to go to the floor of the valley any more just to see another fake rock bus stop.”

End quote.

I also share his views. I could not have said it better.

While making use of what seems to be a never-ending stream of cash from an organization that is becoming infamous for funding unnecessary projects, the Yosemite Fund continues to destroy Yosemite National Park for future generations by paving the way to overcrowding. By over spending on projects and adding unnecessary man made embellishments on an otherwise pristine park, you are ruining it for those very same people for whom you have been entrusted to preserve it. Unfortunately, because of the Yosemite Fund there is too much money given to you, and you can’t seem to find ways not to build things. Someone in your organization needs to stand up and either say “no”, or to simply find ways to use the money that won’t encourage more visitors to individual places throughout the park, with man made accompaniments like tour bus parking lots, cedar fences, paved trails and concrete or granite curbs.

Is it your view that since President Lincoln set Yosemite Valley aside as a park that it was meant to be redeveloped to meet the ever increasing demands of each and every subsequent generation, to accommodate however many people can potentially travel there on any given day?

As you widen and straighten roads in the park, building them with an improved substructure that will accommodate ever larger and heavier vehicles, notably “tour buses”, and you design city like infrastructures, such as the new sewer system that is clearly being built for the future, don’t you ever wonder where this is going to end? Or, are you building these infrastructures for the mid 21st century when visitation may well quadruple from today’s numbers? Will you always find an excuse to expand this park to accommodate any amount of tourism, only because you have Yosemite Fund money to spend?

In the mid 1950s Yosemite saw its first million visitors in one calendar year. If John Muir were alive at that time, I submit to you that he would have begged for a restrictive User Carrying Capacity that would have protected Yosemite at the expense of lost revenue, and at the cost of turning people away.

People can always make a reservation if they really want to come. You can’t get in to see the Sistine Chapel without a ticket bought in advance. Why should Yosemite suffer the burdens of an ever-growing world? The number of Yosemite’s visitors doubled again from the mid 1970s, only twenty years later, to over two-million people who visited Yosemite during that era. At that time there was already an effort underway to look for ways to reduce what was then described as “overcrowding” even before two-million visitors was reached by 1976, which was a movement which started in the late 1960s. Not surprisingly, that number of four-million visitors predictably occurred by the mid 1990s, having doubled in only twenty years. Yosemite’s visitation is expected to double again in about ten more years from now if history repeats itself.

Due to your removal of over half of all Yosemite Valley’s campsites in 1997, when you refused to use money given to you by Congress to replace the flooded campgrounds, many average Americans can no longer appreciate Yosemite’s wonders, as the costs of hotel accommodations have outstripped their budgets. There are also those of us that prefer camping for the benefits of a closer connection to nature than can be found in a hotel room.

Hotel construction outside the park has increased, and the escalating tour bus industry has creating a need for more and more accommodations near park gates, while you try to conceive of ways to accommodate all who want to come at all costs. Why is that? It’s because you know the Yosemite Fund will be there to help you pay for it. By not increasing your gate fees for tour buses, you encouraged the tour bus industry to cash in on Yosemite as a profit center, while at the same time you have increased gate fees for everyone else.

You removed Tenaya Lake campground years ago, and now you want to replace those campers with three hour day-trippers. You are manipulating the parks new demographics. You are making Yosemite National Park into the park system’s version of a fast food experience. There was nothing wrong with the old Tenaya Lake campground, other than perhaps it should have been redesigned with less and more separated campsites for lower impacts.

When you last negotiated DNC’s contract, you arranged it so that you are now beneficiaries of some of their profits, sharing in economic growth which is relative to numbers of tourists that come to the park of course, putting you in direct conflict of interest when it comes to protecting this park for future generations. You are now in direct competition with those who want less human impacts to the park. You may be good business people, but you are not good at preserving Yosemite unchanged for future generations, which is clearly your higher calling. You now profit when DNC profits, and your vision of what is right for this National Park has become obscured by your income driven focus.

Many no longer trust the Yosemite Fund or your judgment. The Yosemite Fund dictated to you what they wanted to do at the Yosemite Falls area project, when the you, (the Y.N.P.S.) stepped back and let them do whatever they wanted to do. There was not a word of opposition from you to the Yosemite Fund bringing in their own famous and expensive architect, Larry Halprin, known for building city buildings, to design a city like park system of paths and buildings on the Lower Falls site, without a word of objection from anyone in park management. History is repeating itself if you take this money and use it as I suspect you might, by expanding tourist accommodations.

Day tripping visitation is on the increase, and it’s becoming very clear that Yosemite park managers are eager to accommodate them at all levels. Because the Yosemite Fund has more park visitors to solicit from these days, with visitation up, and because they have several large corporate donors looking for tax shelters, the Yosemite Fund seems to have a lot of cash at their disposal; cash which has no real purpose unless you find ways to spend it. Park management continues to create ways to spend that money while facilitating visitation to an ever-growing number of visitors without any thought to slowing down. At this rate, if the visitation continues to double every twenty years, Yosemite will need to accommodate in excess of sixteen-million people by 2046 and thirty-two-million by 2066. It is an understatement to say that there is something wrong with this. What is worse, I have never heard the park service discuss this probability, or entertain any solutions to it. On the contrary, at the User Capacity Symposium that you sponsored last year, you even came out to say you opposed turning people away and were seeking other solutions to address the User Carrying Capacity court mandate.

Turning people away at some point is the right thing to do, and it can and will have to be done with some form of a reservation system. You need to consider a restrictive User Carrying Capacity that will enable future generations to see Yosemite as it once was, and/or could still be, and not as an overcrowded three-hour tour to this emerging fast food mentality world. The three-hour Yosemite experience is not giving the public who want a Yosemite nature experience a better understanding of its depth and magnificence. Because this is true, by promoting the park as a three-hour tour destination, I feel that you are missing the point of your mission as park stewards.

If I am wrong, perhaps you should just create a conveyor belt up Lyell Canyon with an escalator to the top of Mount Lyell? There are those who feel that more people should be able to experience this summit experience, and see that view. Is it possible that you can eventually accommodate every tourist in the world? On a clear day up there you can see Mount Diablo. There are already those who say a duplicate set of cables should be installed on Half Dome, due to overcrowding that has been in the news of late. Can’t someone within your organization step up and say “no” to the concept of “accommodating all who want to come” for a change?

As the famous former Sierra Club leader, David Brower, once said, “Yosemite should be a nature center, not a profit center”. Why not start now to make the hard decision to set up a reservation system?

Letter to Mike Tollefson

8 Aug 2008 17:53:03 GMT

Mike Tollefson,

Yosemite Valley Camper Coalition petition signer number 1,148, at 1:08pm PST, on Jul 27th, 2008, Keith Attarian of California wrote, and I quote:

"Camping in Yosemite has been an activity shared by most of my family and for generations has brought joy, peace and many friends. If the NPS continues to eliminate camping and keeping the general public from enjoying the many areas of the park by fencing off one area after another, the only way you will be able to enjoy the park is thru photos. The park was established for Americans to enjoy and camping is in my opinion the best way to do that. "

End quote.

As this signer seems to articulate the disposition of many Yosemite campers, I thought you should read it.

My thoughts:

In 1954 the park saw 1,000,000 visitors for the first time. That number doubled in 1976, and doubled again in 1996 to over 4,000,000, demonstrating that about every twenty years visitation to Yosemite generally doubles. Based on historical visitation, by the mid 2020s close to 8,000,000 visitors are projected to come to the park annually, and you keep saying you don’t want to turn people away. Will double that number in the following generation change the mind of the then park manager? Won’t that be too late?

Your fences that keep people away from meadows and rivers, and your elimination of old campgrounds is not a solution. Humans are supposed to impact the park to level that you should be able to manage. That is why the park was set up, for preservation and for our resort and recreation, as was how President Lincoln stated it. The park is there for our use and the Park Service is there to manage that use.

The Park Service has the responsibility to manage human impacts on the Valley’s ecological systems, not to eliminate them with fences and removal of campgrounds to keep people out. This is counter intuitive. The best way to regulate or manage future human impacts is to manage the number of people affecting an area at any one time. A “User Carrying Capacity” that restricts visitation to manageable levels will mitigate human impacts naturally.

The elimination of campsites and the putting up of fences to keep people out, does not manage human impacts; it eliminates them. The elimination of human impact is not the same as managing human impact.

Take down those fences, Mr. Tollefson, put back the campgrounds the Park Service removed. Make sure there are 684 drive-in campsites, which would be down from the original 800, as per the 1980 Yosemite Valley General Management Plan. By doing so you will have separated them and removed those that were too close to the river, as was specifically described in the Yosemite Valley General Management Plan, which the Yosemite Valley Plan was supposed to “adhere to” but did not.

Then, simply limit the number of day-trippers and the ever-increasing number of commercial tour buses coming to the park daily, and you will have a solution to your mandated court order. It’s really very simple.

Mr. Keith Attarian’s comments above, from the petition to replace the removed campgrounds, were very much on target.

Mark Sutherlin

Truckee, CA

North Pines Campground hangs on a thread.

17 Jul 2008 23:48:31 GMT

All Yosemite Valley campgrounds will have new sewer pipes, water pipes and electrical lines run, in accordance to a master plan and approved by the Yosemite Valley Plan's record of decision, with money from congress.

But, not North Pines campground.

North Pines campground will continue to have its old sewer lift station which the approved Yosemite Valley Plan directly identified for removal. The park service managers, that is the "current" park service managers will keep it running for now, though all utility components within the campground will not comply with the new sewer plans, while the other campgrounds will.

Hope is alive in North Pines, for those with shortsighted vision, and for those who have short memories. The campground is alive with no authority other than the "current" park supervisor stated in a letter to Brian O. with the Yosemite Valley Campers Coalition that they have decided to not "currently" remove it.

I have a problem with that word "currently". To me, it means something that could change at any time. It's like our public utility district where I live, where they are "currently" replacing our main water lines, and along with that, they are putting water meters in for the first time. But, they say to us that they will not "currently" turn them on. Ha ha. I guess the jokes on those of us who feel comforted by that.

In the case of Yosemite Valley, there will be new park managers at some point, and they may assume that the focus of the limelight is not trained on them, and that as time goes on, they will know that they do in fact have the authority to finish the job. After all, their approved plans show that the NPS have agreed to remove the campground.

Perhaps we'll all be gone by then and there will be no one to call their cards.

What needs to happen is for the approved Yosemite Valley Plan to be rescinded, or at the very least amended. I believe in plans, but I believe in plans that the park doesn't make up as they go along first. Which should it be? Without an approved amendment to the YVP to allow North Pines to get new utilities, and comply with the rest of the "improvements", there will never be any security in these comments from the park managers.

Sure, we have learned that they do not have to invite public input. They didn't invite comment on the possibility of keeping and repairing the flooded campgrounds. In cases such as this they shun the public spotlight while their spin masters go to work.

The court isn't going to nitpick over every detail of what the Yosemite Valley Plan dictates in matters such as this. That isn't their big concern. Their concern is the Merced River Plan and its Wild and Scenic River status, the outstanding remarkable values of the river, and how to protect those values.

It's not like they're need to get approval to NOT do something that's not in their own plans if they don't "currently" want to. It's more that they don't NEED approval to NOT do something in their own contrived plan.

Ten years from now, when all these managers are long gone, and they new managers are looking at the books for unfinished projects, after they've accomplished all their other projects, times can and will probably change. Hey, expectations that park visitation will be close to double the mid-1990s levels by the mid 2020s are predictions that are probably correct. The park hit 1M visitors in '54, 2M in '76 and 4M in '96. It doubles every twenty to twentyfive years. Any current, or new park managers have the authority to remove North Pines if and when they wan to, because it's approved in the Yosemite Valley Plan, a document that is as of yet unchanged. That, is the bottom line. They will also be able to use it as a negotiating tool when the fact that they "currently" are not removing North Pines Campgrounds when it comes to dealing with the victorious plaintiffs moving forward if they need to. It is a big hammer, you have to admit that.

Fran Mainella, when she was Director of the NPS, told us point blank in a congressional subcommittee hearing in Yosemite Valley in April of 2002, that the removal of the campgrounds will enable more people to utilize the space for foot traffic of day use people. She said that as time goes on there will be more and more day trippers and it will be a better use of the property; not in exact words, but pretty close.

In other words, to the NPS, unless something has changed, it's all about accommodating as many people as possible for some reason, as they lament to the media whenever visitation is down. That they complain when visitation is down should be our fist clue whether or not they have a larger agenda.

Fran Mainella, former Park Director, went on to talk about how day trippers "currently" represented 70% of the visitors, and that in the mid '60s there was about the same percentage in reverse, where 70% overnight visitors were visiting the park. That these numbers had completely reversed, was her point she wanted to make to show how trends have and are changing. She didn't suggest that the NPS had anything to do with those changes, of course; which they did.

The elimination of so many accommodations in the Valley by the park service may have had something to do with that, don't you think? But, Fran didn't allude to to that for some reason.

For those of you who trust the Yosemite National Park Service in this, more power to you. We can only hope that these park managers are more camper friendly than the park managers just prior to them, and will put their best foot forward by amending or rescinding the Yosemite Valley Plan. They need to approve North Pines Campground, and it nneeds to stay for the all the many future Yosemite Campers.

Then, if they did that, we could simply focus on the hoped for replacement of the three and a half flooded campgrounds that were removed without ANY public comment during the "500 year flood of 1997". After all, funding was given to them by congress for those flooded campground repairs.

Where are we now, since the 1980 Yosemite General Management Plan?

7 Jul 2008 19:52:02 GMT

\b{Where are we now, since the 1980 Yosemite General Management Plan?} Campground Plans as per the 1980 GMP: Remove campground sites and other development adjacent to the Merced River as follows: Upper Pine Campground (18 units) Lower Pine Campground (22 units) North Pine Campground (25 units) Upper River Campground (15 units) Lower River Campground (36 units) Total removed per the 1980 GMP: 116 units Retain Muir Tree and Sunnyside walk-in campgrounds (58 units) and group campground (14 units) Retain and revegetate \b{684 drive-in campsites}; restrict self-contained-vehicle camping and separate tent camping from vehicle camping. Retain existing provisions for winter camping. End quote. Source: \newurl{http://www.nps.gov/archive/yose/planning/gmp/campgrnd.html, NPS website} \b{A little history:} \b{Visitation exceeded one-million in 1954 for the first time. } In the late 1960s the public and Yosemite park managers were of the same mind when they determined that something needed to be done to protect Yosemite from over visitation, and plans were begun to solicit public input to get some ideas on the table to toss around. In the mid 1970s the public argued in court that Yosemite National Park did not do enough to get public involvement. The park responded by using their mailing list of park campground visitors to solicit comment, and sent out a large mailing that got people involved. \b{By 1976 over two-million people visited Yosemite. } By 1980 the park had involved the public and made some strict determinations as to what to do to protect the park. But, did nothing to regulate visitation was ever considered, though over visitation was and still is one of the main problem threatening Yosemite. \b{In the mid-1990s, visitation topped four million. } By the mid-1990s the park decided to create their own plan, the Yosemite Valley Plan, while also skirting the planning process by developing pet projects on their own without any plan or public process to guide them, in advance of the actual "blueprint" that would limit their actions, in the MRP. Reference: \newurl{http://yosemitecampers.com/hodapp_ltr.htm,click here.} The park service said that the Yosemite Valley Plan would enable them to move toward meeting the five (5) broad goals of the 1980 General Management Plan in Yosemite Valley. The Yosemite National Park Service claimed that the GMP was designed to guide the National Park Service in protecting and managing Yosemite National Park. The YVP was said to have outlined five broad goals, which were going to comply with the original plans of the GMP: 1. Reclaim priceless natural beauty 2. Reduce traffic congestion 3. Allow natural processes to prevail 4. Reduce crowding 5. Promote visitor understanding and enjoyment Because the YVP did not adhere to the GMP, because the MRP has been determined by the appellate court to be illegal, and none of the park’s plans have done anything to regulate the flow of visitation to Yosemite that directly contributes to over “crowding” (item #5. above), a new planning process should begin which would adhere to the court's mandate to deal with the “user carrying capacity”. The court mandated that the park didn't do enough to design a "user carrying capacity" for Yosemite Valley. Instead all the park service has done is mitigate impacts so as to enable higher levels of visitation. Excessive visitation as the root cause of “crowding” is something that should have been outlined in the GMP and was not. Subsequent to the doubling of visitation from 1954 to 1976, from one million to two million in little more than twenty years, is when park planners were then court ordered to get more aggressive in their efforts to involve the public and get a plan started that would protect Yosemite from crowding. Then the park saw another doubling of visitation from 1976 to the mid-1990s, but at that time a new park management agenda was developing, at a time when Yosemite and other National Parks started realizing their potential for capitalizing on the continuing influx of visitation. Item number four above, in the list of goals for the YVP, "Reduce crowding", was never meant to reduce visitation, some within the park service have said. What was meant is that any level of visitation is possible with the proper crowd control measures in place. It's all about crowd control. The park service see themselves as being in the position of serving the public, and it goes against all that they believe that they stand for to think about setting limits on visitation, as that would mean that they would be setting limits on the service that they are providing to the public; which gives meaning to Park Superintendant, Mike Tollefson’s statement that he doesn’t want to turn people away. Before resource management, perhaps they see themselves as public servants first. They want to "accommodate all who want to come", as Steven Mather once said, and previous Park Superintendent, Dave Mihalic, often repeated. Limiting visitation seems to go against their grain. They like accommodating people. So what!? Here’s the problem: Based on these historic visitation numbers above, about every twenty to twenty-five years visitation in Yosemite DOUBLES!!! Yes! The park service was put into place to keep parks like Yosemite from changing when the outside world around them changes. The park service needs to rethink this. Based on these numbers, somewhere around 2015 to 2020, EIGHT MILLION PEOPLE will be coming to Yosemite, almost all coming in as day trippers. How much of a nature experience do you think campers will be getting then, much less these day trippers? Right now 70% of the visitors, the park says, comes in as day trippers, while in the mid '60s, 70% were overnight visitors. The trend reversed itself, but not with a little help from the park service when they closed over half of the valley’s campgrounds, while setting no limits on the number of day use visitors can come to the park. The judicial system has stated that the park needs to address the "user carrying capacity" with a realistic plan. Though this decision is about thirty years late in it’s thinking, considering the problem began in the ‘70s, the park is being perfectly silent since that ruling by the 7th District Appellate Court, and we are left to wonder why. I believe that the answer can be found in the unplanned project list that Steve Hodapp mentioned in \newurl{http://yosemitecampers.com/hodapp_ltr.htm,his letter} to congress, where we learned that the park does only what they want to do and answers to no one. Even congress is left to wonder why, as per the letter by Mr. Hodapp above. Things like the contributions from Yosemite Fund, the windfall money the park gets from the Fee Demo Gate Entrance Fee arrangement, along with normal congressional funds, contributes to their financial needs in a way that gives them autonomy. Why do they need to comply with a court order that the court can’t find a way to enforce? What level of law enforcement is the court going to use to implement its ruling? The NPS is like a government of its own. They operate like a small Latin America Dictatorship that refuses to take orders and does whatever they want to do, regardless of the will of the people. The court order is supposed to be the will of the people, but the park service doesn’t feel compelled to do anything about it. Park Managers need to think about bringing Yosemite back to a time when more people came to Yosemite for a so called “nature experience”, spending their time camping, than what is happening now where people drive up for the day, eat a slice of pizza and leave. Bus tours from hotels in San Francisco pick their international tourists up in the morning and drop them off at their hotel by nightfall, and never connect Yosemite to a nature experience in any way, shape, or form. Where is the enforcement arm of the judicial system with regards to the recent 7th District Court of Appeals, when it comes to Yosemite National Park? When are park managers going to tell us what they intend to do to comply with the court order?

Quote of the day from "Dot", a regular website poster

24 May 2008 05:52:33 GMT

Quote:

"Without quoting numbers and "plans"---I am simply going to state a very simple fact. The "flood" didn't destroy ONE cmpground. WHAT was to destroy??

Before the tables and fire rings and asphalt roads---we camped in Yosemite Valley. Yes--sometimes it was dusty as it was all dirt except for a few areas of grass. Nothing fancy--no big store to restock food. We drove in and found a space. It wasn't always easy and if planned properly we were never turned away. Yes--sometimes it got too crowded--but not often. Rules were made and Rangers were there to see to it that they were obeyed. They often stopped by to chat at night by our campfire. We thought they were nice guys and we felt welcome. We were fortunate and for the most part had good weather. Only once did some friends get rained out. They spent the night in a tent at Curry and all was well the next day. There was nothing to wash away. No tables--no fire rings and no roads and we did really camp. We didn't need those things. We brought what we needed and that was the way it was. I would ask NPS what was there to fix?? Perhaps the restrooms?? Real campers don't ask for the bells and whistles--just a spot to pitch a tent or what ever they might use.

No fancy hook ups for trailers and RV's. I--as well as others know what happened after the flood in the Campgrounds. One of them was posted on this siite by a former employee who saw what was done. NPS knows their part in it and most of us know that the campgrounds are still there and often an eyesore as NPS uses them as storage and dumps. They should be ashamed. I think that now it has become a war of wills and they use their fences to let us know who is the boss.

In all of my 59 years of coming to the Valley nothing has been more upsetting for me than all of those out of place ugly fences. Is that natural?? Do people pay attention to those fences?For the most part --no. Just go to the over done Yosemite Falls area and see just how much good those walkways and fences really do. They just ruin my Yosemite experience and for the most part are of little or no value. I don't know why it has become such an issue with NPS about the campgrounds. Why do they care? What is their agenda? It can't be about too many people as they are enhancing all sorts of areas to be able to make room for more people to crowd into the Valley.

The campgrounds were removed on false pretenses and I would be willing to guess that people would be willing to camp again in those "flooded" areas with a minimum of improvements. They don't need them. I am totally offended by their fences and most of them serve no purpose other than to look ugly--"

End quote.

Author: "Dot", a regular poster on www.yosemitecampers.com on 5-23-08

"Mission-related programs of the National Park Service"

17 Apr 2008 17:35:42 GMT

What is meant by "mission-related programs of the National Park Service"?

I read it on a website of retired NPS employees and I was wondering about it. I guess it’s a script that they all adhere to that isn’t made public.

My curiosity comes from a position I hold, which is that the local park management get their marching orders from above. I have spoken to people at the park who work in and around the top brass, and have been told that they do not get their marching order scripts from above in their organization, i.e. the NPS in Washington. But, I question that as you might guess. It seems that the park follows a well worn path, because they talk of goals that are in direct lockstep with things that other parks have done, which show a pattern. The term "cookie cutter parks" has been tossed around in the past, and I just assumed that this term "mission-related programs of the National Park Service" holds a key to this view of why this new park superintendent seems to be following in the path of his predecessor with such synchronicity. If it's not so, I would think that this park manager would be less hesitant to the concept of a complete public process review of the Yosemite Valley Plan if they ever get beyond the Merced River Plan, though that will take years, as we know.

Each manager seems to want to get things done quickly, so this litigation apparently drives them crazy. They forget that there are many local Californians that still refer to Steven Mather’s Tioga Pass road as the “new road”. Perhaps it’s a problem with these managers wanting to pin accomplishments to their badge before they are either replaced, transferred or retired. With so much riding on this recent court decision, I would think that they would not want to invest in another legal battle that could drag them into another several year struggle if the litigants bring up the fact that the YVP is intricately connected to the MRP, and that, it has no legs without a MRP to authorize every decision in it. It is the legal blueprint for the MRP, and at this point it is suspect, to say the least. The MPR has to come before a YVP, but, the previous park superintendent refused to open it for further review when ask to by congress.

Maybe congress doesn't pull enough rank on them, but we have learned that the judicial system can. It just costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time. That's all. In other words, I wonder if the new park superintendent might stray from the so called "mission-related programs of the National Park Service" if it would be the right thing to do, when it comes to Yosemite, and it could avoid dragging this out for yet even more years before a legal decision might force their hand.

Yosemite's Scott Gediman's Denigrating Comments

3 Apr 2008 18:27:28 GMT

There is a blind faith sentiment from many of the public and media to believe the National Park Service when they make eloquent and lofty environmental statements. When such statements come from Yosemite's Park Spokesman, Scott Gediman, the public wants to trust that they mean well that that there is no hidden agenda. Without the Ninth District Court of Appeals to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, of whom the park’s designated Spokesman, Scott Gediman has maligned in the media as "a few people with narrow views", it would be much harder for people to sort out fact from fiction. Scott Gediman’s so-called "few people with narrow views" represent 52 amici signers nationwide, who signing on to the original litigation, which included the respected Counties of Tuolumne and Madera. In addition there is more than 1,100 signatories on the Yosemite Valley Campers Coalition’s e-petition and more than 500 on their written petition in support of the return of campsites removed after the 1997 flood without public input, after congress gave the park service millions of dollars for campsite flood recover. The court's decision may now encourage the public to delve deeper into Yosemite planning issues story to sort through deceptive statements from the Yosemite National Park Service's spokespeople. Isn't it great that there is a justice system where the a grassroots group of concerned citizens can seek justice and hold accountable the National Park Service who panders to large corporations and private interests in their ongoing effort to raise money for the privatization and commercialization of Yosemite and our other National Parks. Mark Sutherlin Truckee, CA

Quote of the day

29 Mar 2008 03:41:30 GMT

The following was a poster's response to a newspaper article today, where YNPS's Scott Gediman got some press on what the park's views are, as follows:

How many lies can Gediman spout in one article and the press just blindly lets him have the floor... The man has no shame!! The article below takes the cake. The Plan wasn't rejected by "environmentalists"; it was rejected by the Courts for being illegal. He moans about the utility project as though it was being blocked and how the Park is under a cleanup and abatement order; he fails to mention Judge Ishii allowed the Park to move forward with Phase 1 of the Utility project in 2004 and allowed Phases 2 and 3 to move forward in March of 2007--all utility work has been cleared for completion and had nothing to do with this ruling. He talks about the need to pave the Valley Loop Road; the judge cleared that project in March of 2007--it's currently being done. He talks about campgrounds being rebuilt after the flood; fails to mention that building 30 new RV sites and 59 walk-in sites on undeveloped land in Upper Pines will enable the NPS to eliminate 86 family-friendly auto-based sites at North Pines that have been used for decades--it's not about replacing sites after the flood, it's about eliminating North Pines, reducing Lower Pines, expanding Upper Pines and consolidating traffic circulation to accommodate busing. And this is just a "few people"--try 52 amici nationwide signing on to the original litigation including the Counties of Tuolumne and Madera; how about the more than 1,100 signatories on the campers e-petition and the more than 500 on a written petition. No one wants to report on the very simple fact that the Park Service waived its objections to the injunction by not presenting it to the Court--this ruling has nothing to do with projects; it's about an invalid River Plan which will ultimately establish the zoning blueprint for projects...

Yosemite projects' delay upheld

Appellate court ruling gives environmentalists a key victory in the battle over park plan.

By Pablo Lopez and Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee 03/27/08 23:38:58

In a blow to the National Park Service, a federal appellate court Thursday upheld a Fresno judge's order that stopped 14 construction projects in Yosemite Valley. U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii ordered the park service in November 2006 to halt more than $100 million in projects -- including the $35 million effort to rebuild Yosemite Lodge -- until the agency rewrote its controversial plan to protect the Merced River. The park service appealed the judge's ruling, but a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Ishii on Thursday, saying the agency must hold off on those projects until September 2009 -- the deadline for a new river plan that must address environmentalists' fears that development would hurt Yosemite's fragile ecosystems. The appellate court said the park service failed to sufficiently address a key issue -- what number of visitors would harm the federally protected river. Without that number, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote, the framework of the park service's plan "is reactionary and requires a response only after degradation has already occurred." Yosemite park spokesman Scott Gediman said the level of visitors that could cause degradation is an elusive number because the park is so vast. He said the park has no plans to limit visitors. "It's frustrating because the public clearly wants these projects to be completed," he said. He also said the ruling could jeopardize about $200 million that Congress set aside for Yosemite after the floods of 1997. The 14 projects are part of a $441 million planned overhaul. Now, the park service must devise a new plan because of "a few people with narrow views," Gediman said, referring to the Friends of Yosemite Valley and Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Government. The two groups have led the legal battle against the park service. "Part of the park service's propaganda is that we're fringe groups," but the court decisions have proved that's not true, said Bart Brown, chairman of Mariposans. He also doesn't believe the federal funding will be lost. Brown said the Merced River should be free of waste or air pollution caused by traffic and shouldn't be endangered by construction too near its banks. The lawsuit dates back to 2000, three years after a large Merced River flood caused extensive damage in Yosemite Valley. The river swamped Yosemite Valley campgrounds and sewage facilities, and damaged many buildings. As the park service planned the lodge reconstruction and other projects, environmentalists argued that a legally acceptable plan needed to be in place before work could begin along the river. The park service wrote its initial plan in 2000, but it was rejected by environmentalists. When the agency came out with a revised plan in 2005, Gediman said, several environmental groups, including The Wilderness Society and the National Resource Defense Council, supported it. In addition to remodeling Yosemite Lodge, the projects include improvements on the sewage system, replacement of the Happy Isles footbridge and removal of an old sewage treatment plant in El Portal. In all, the 14 projects were estimated to cost nearly $105 million, park records show. The utility project would fix the valley's sewage system, which is under a state cleanup order for sewage spills into the river, Gediman said. "Some of those pipes are 60 to 70 years old," he said. Another project, repaving the Valley Loop road, would make the park safer for motorists. There are also plans to rebuild campgrounds destroyed by the 1997 flood, he said. The Friends of Yosemite and Mariposans, however, have used the courts to halt those plans. Ishii rejected the park service's 2005 plan -- a document that guides management of the Merced under the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act -- saying it did not specify limits on the number of visitors around the river, which has sensitive areas that might be trampled by crowds. Gediman said the park service will continue working on its new river plan, work that began after Ishii made his 2006 ruling. By the end of this year, or early next year, the public will have ample time to comment on it, he said. "It's sad that a few people can stop the public from seeing improvements that will make Yosemite Valley a better place for everyone," Gediman said. End quote

Merced River ORV Scoping Meeting Feb. 23, 2008

Mark Sutherlin — 18 Feb 2008 21:37:46 GMT

Last weekend, Mr. Tollefson told me that they're putting new campsites up in Upper Pines. I knew this, and thought we could talk about it, but it was apparently a passing comment, as he then walked away. It struck me that he clearly wanted to have his say, but wanted no dialogue on the topic. I think he doesn't understand how the Yosemite Valley Plan was supposed to have followed the guidelines of the 1980 GMP (General Management Plan) when it came to the campgrounds, or so they said they would do. Or, perhaps he believes that Dave Mihalic's decision to do whatever the heck he wanted, by removing entire campgrounds without so much as calling for any public input was totally justified; because to a park superintendent, perhaps the park is their fiefdom. I’m sure he would say otherwise, but by not addressing the fact that no public scoping was involved in the removal of the campgrounds, he is in fact endorsing Mihalic’s decisions in regards to the campground removals. That was Mihalic’s Yosemite Valley Plan, not the public’s. Mihalic set himself up to be king of all he surveyed, while the public simply waited for him to leave, as is always inevitable, just as they’ve watched many park managers who think they are king, come and go. They come, make some changes, and leave the names stamped on a plaque somewhere, commemorating their deeds. The NPS says that they know that Yosemite is the "crown jewel of the park system", but they don’t seem to get it when they have so many of the public that want to be involved in the process. Before the record of decision on the Yosemite Valley Plan there was vast public involvement, so much so that the park complained about it. Now they wonder why there is such little involvement from the public when they call for scoping input. This sounds so rhetorical, but gee, I wonder why that is. If the Yosemite Valley Plan does not get reopened for further scoping, with all the campsites put back on the table for discussion once all this litigation is over with, regardless of how the litigation goes, it will be seen as yet another slap in the face to the locals who have seen so many park managers come and go over the past thirty years, and to the many Yosemite campers who feel slighted, and of course to the general public who once believed in the park’s public input process, had faith in them, and have since lost faith. It’s all about trust, which is a two way street. On Brian Ouzounian’s http://www.yosemitevalleycampers.org/ website there is a "References" page or section. On it, there is a link to a camping survey done several years ago. In the survey, it shows that the love of camping and nature had its biggest impact on people when they were very young. I can't recall the age specifically, but it’s important to reach them when they are young of course. That impression about camping, in Yosemite Valley of all places, would be all about the quality of that experience. And, when the park originally talked about improving the park with the Yosemite Valley Plan, a good camping experience was at the heart of the dialogue that the public was involved in, back when there was balance in the tone coming from the park service many years ago, BEFORE Mihalic. By refusing to replace three and a half entire campgrounds in Yosemite Valley with the money given to the park to repair the campgrounds, leaving only what is left of Upper Pines, North Pines and part of Lower Pines, the park service has made it impossible to implement any of the ideals or guidelines set forth in the 1980 GMP regarding campsite separation, leaving them as cramped as ever. Mihalic’s move made it clear that campers, and more specifically families of average means, are not the focus of the park's attention. The Yosemite experience of average people, especially if they are campers, should be foremost in the park's eyes, but instead it is not. It's interesting that when I talk to park service people at every level below management, I get an almost unanimous concurrence to this concept; with the possible exception being some who've never given it any thought. These views are received warmly by some in the park service, while others seemingly have never heard of any of this controversy. It's not surprising, because there are so many new park service people right now. Remember a few years ago when we had heard that so many park rangers and park service employees that had worked in Yosemite for many years, were on their way out, via requested transfers or early retirement? We had heard that it was due to Mihalic's presence that hung over the park like a dark cloud which created that atmosphere. Mr. Tollefson has a chance to listen but this is not what we’re seeing from him. The park service did not listen then, when Mihalic was there. Will Mr. Tollefson listen if the court agrees with the plaintiffs? Will he realize that maybe Mihalic was wrong about removing campgrounds without public input? Will he admit that the Yosemite Valley Plan and former Merced River Plans were rushed to completion? Mr. Tollefson wasn't here then. But, someone needs to get the message to him that the time leading up to Bruce Babbitt's departure from office, there was far more work done on the draft Yosemite Valley Plan than the Merced River Plan. The draft Yosemite Valley Plan was comprised of things that needed a Merced River Plan to justify and authorize. So, they conjured up a rushed Merced River Plan that would endorse their more complicated draft Yosemite Valley Plan that they had spent more time working on. They then approved both of these plans just in time, before Babbitt left office. If the Merced River Plan's carrying capacity has to be revised, as per the court's decision now, presuming the appeal does not win, (which it shouldn't), then someone in the current park management should be willing to admit that the Yosemite Valley Plan is no longer viable. No Yosemite Valley Plan should be respected that does not take into consideration all aspects of the Merced River Plan. And, because right now there is no Merced River Plan, the Yosemite Valley Plan is obviously broken and should be thrown out. But, with or without the Merced River Plan, the park should have involved their vast database of former Yosemite Campers, all of whom reside somewhere on a database. The park should finally, if they really want to do the right thing, ask for their involvement with regards to campground related changes. To simply close the campgrounds, because they were in the way of the flooded river, would be justification to remove campsites along all rivers that flood at times. Camping is and has been a recreational and lifestyle choice for millenniums in Yosemite Valley, along the river. It is possible to do this AND protect the river, which was addressed in the 1980 GMP. Camping must be listed in the ORVs (Outstanding Remarkable Values) in the upcoming Merced River (Wild and Scenic River) Planning, and we need those campgrounds back before we can move forward, with serious public involvement. Camping is an acceptable use in a "Wild and Scenic River" description, and camping in a periodic flood zone is commonly accepted. The upcoming Merced River Wild and Scenic River Scoping plan, this Saturday, February 23, 2008 should be interesting, with the Yosemite Valley Plan Elephant sitting in the room.

Yosemite's User Carrying Capacity Symposium, or Spin Machine?

25 Jan 2008 23:22:05 GMT

By Mark Sutherlin Date: January 25, 2008 A YosemiteCampers.com response to Yosemite National Park's Upcoming Carrying Capacity Symposium. Regarding the upcoming Yosemite National Park User Carrying Capacity Symposium for February 6-9, coming up, Yosemite National Park has not released an actual news release article to the media on this upcoming event because they would like to control what information about this subject gets to the media. One or two local papers have printed something about it, but this “event” is something that the news media would pick up on, had the park service’s marketing and propaganda department issued a news release. Instead, they sent out and email if you’re on their mailing list, or perhaps the Yosemite Association’s mailing list, and they put something up on their website, but a formal news release so that the public at large could act and respond? No. Of course, after the event I am inclined to expect that the park service will generate a spin article to the media news people of the event after the fact, which will put a spin on the event from their perspective, so that it will put them in a good light, as you might expect of course. They will relate to the changes in the park they are making, that will “accommodate all who want to come”, and how a carrying capacity with specific limits would inhibit that. The park service does not want a carrying capacity, and is in the throws of finding a way around it, and I am convinced that this “symposium” is just a way to find who their partners are out in the world who will facilitate an end run on the mandated requirement of a carrying capacity in Yosemite that would restrict the park from incrementally ramping up visitation over time, as demand dictates. The changes they have made to Yosemite Valley and are making will be to the intended exclusion of average Americans who want to camp in Yosemite Valley, and the increase of the foreign day trip visitors that arrive on tour buses from San Francisco each day by the droves, swarming the park with people wandering all over the park by the tens of thousands each day. That is where the park service is headed with their new development plans for Yosemite Valley, with the removal of campgrounds and campsite is the Valley over recent years. If you'll notice, the park has managed to eliminate three and a half entire campgrounds from the Valley recently, while they have invested in the development of spectacular tour bus friendly infrastructures that enables the Valley to accommodate ten times the amounts of daily visitors that it ever did on the busiest of days at any time in the past. Specifically, I am referring to the strengthening and widening of various roads into and out of the valley, that they say will accommodate the large tour buses better, the expansion of paved trails at the Lower Yosemite Falls area, that they say will accommodate more people, which they feel is a positive statement. Clearly their new Yosemite Lodge plans will accommodate more people and is going forward as planned, along with their new city like sewer expansion project, which has been underway now for ten years. However, the U.S. court of appeals is now reviewing the issue of a Carrying Capacity for our beloved Valley, for all the right reasons. The park service had wanted to eliminate the requirement of a “carrying capacity” in their latest Merced River Plan, but the public created a law suit to hold their feet to the fire. The public won the law suit in regards to the issue of a “carrying capacity”, because we the public understand what they meant by their statement that the park service wanted to "accommodate all who want to come", something of a mantra they have used over time. This is a term they use which actually means that they intend to update the park to accommodate as many people as possible, on any given day, to accommodate a burgeoning foreign tour bus industry, while the park service paves their way by eliminating campgrounds for Americans who like to recreate there by way of the most popular method of visiting the park; which is camping. Campers bring their food with them, they often have kids and campfires, and they don't meet the modern "green" compliance requirements the park wants to aspire to. This is where the public needs to jump in. Many of us either like to camp or we want to protect the rights of future Americans who will want to camp in Yosemite Valley, like many of us have done. We can be "green". More often than not, we are environmentally concerned. We are okay with limiting the number of footprints on the ground, to preserve and protect our park. If the park would replace the campgrounds they removed, they should establish a use carrying capacity for the park around the inclusion of those park visitors first, before they decide to establish a carrying capacity that might include five-million international tour bus visitors in the park per year. The park service's manipulation of the demographics of the visitors, targeting visitors who spend money over Americans who just want to camp, is wrong. Please consider attending this symposium, if you want to contribute your views to their so called efforts to establish a plan for moving forward with a Carrying Capacity for our park. Join the efforts, if you agree, with the Yosemite Valley Campers Coalition, or www.yosemitevalleycampers.org, in their effort to protect camper’s interests in Yosemite, by setting a limit on how many people can swarm into Yosemite Valley each day or year, but only after the campsites that they removed in 1997 without public comment are replaced.

Save Yosemite Valley Campgrounds

25 Jan 2008 04:16:41 GMT

Help Save Yosemite Valley's North Pines Campground from closure, and restore the other Yosemite Valley campgrounds closed by the 2000 Yosemite Valley Plan Before the 1997 flood, there were more than 800 family friendly auto-based campsites in Yosemite Valley.

The Park's 2000 Yosemite Valley Plan permanently eliminated Upper River Campground, Lower River Campground, the Yosemite Valley Group Campground and a large portion of Lower Pines Campground. The Plan also targets North Pines Campground for removal, which we feel must not go forward.

Final count: 500 campsites will remain resulting in a loss of more than 40% of camping opportunities in Yosemite Valley. Of the 500 sites, only 330 will be auto-based sites creating even fewer opportunities for young families, the disabled, and the elderly. As part of the emergency flood appropriation, Congress gave the National Park Service funding to repair these campgrounds in Yosemite Valley--not to eliminate them. We oppose this arbitrary action by the National Park Service. We believe the NPS breached any public process in condemning the river damaged campsites and that none took place in their condemnation. We are in favor of the Lower River, Upper River, and a portion of Lower Pines Campgrounds be reinstated with family friendly auto-based sites, as was the case pre-flood of 1997. We further believe that North Pines Campground needs to remain as currently used, and not closed as is planned for in the Yosemite Valley Plan. This request complies with the vision of the Park's original General Management Plan, which the Yosemite National Park Service promised to comply with when they began the planning process for the Yosemite Valley Plan.

Please read about the petition to save camping in Yosemite Valley by going to the website below, where if you are interested you can sign up to get the newsletter at the link that says "Mailing List".

Here's the link: http://www.yosemitevalleycampers.org/

You are invited to attend a User Capacity Symposium at Yosemite National Park

25 Jan 2008 03:38:04 GMT

You are invited to attend a User Capacity Symposium at Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park is hosting a User Capacity Symposium on February 6-8, 2008 in Yosemite Valley. The symposium will be facilitated by a neutral party, Mary Orton from The Mary Orton Company, LLC (www.maryorton.com), an environmental and public policy mediation and facilitation firm. Approximately 150 people from across the country are expected to attend. The public is welcome and invited to attend. RSVP is required by February 1, 2008 to Jim Bacon by email to jim_bacon@nps.gov or by phone at 209/379-1067. The purpose of the symposium is to further the understanding of and explore approaches to addressing user capacity in national parks and other public lands including Yosemite National Park, by engaging public land managers, researchers, elected officials, tribes, and the general public in an open dialogue. The objectives of the symposium are to: Understand why planning and managing user capacity is important. Build a common understanding and language for the range of user capacity approaches. Explore current perspectives on and approaches to addressing user capacity. Identify and understand the effectiveness and consequences of different management strategies addressing user capacity. Explore the application and implications of different user capacity strategies in Yosemite. An expert panel will present on: History and context of user capacity Approaches to user capacity Case studies from the Colorado River through Grand Canyon, Inyo National Forest, and Wild and Scenic Rivers across the country Confirmed Presenters: Dr. David Cole, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute Dr. Glenn Haas, Aukerman, Haas and Associates Linda Jalbert, Grand Canyon National Park Bob Lamb, ORCA Consulting Dr. Bob Manning, University of Vermont Gary Oye, Inyo National Forest Dr. Tony Prato, University of Missouri Columbia Al Shacklett, ORCA Consulting Dr. Bo Shelby, Oregon State University Dr. Doug Whittaker, Confluence Research and Consulting In addition to presentations, roundtable conversations will allow for input, ideas, and questions from and with all symposium participants. This will be a unique opportunity to expand your knowledge about user capacity through presentations by experts, and dialogue with researchers, local stakeholders, and land managers from around the country. Dates: February 6 - 8, 2008 Location: Yosemite Lodge, Cliff Room Yosemite National Park, CA Please note that lunch is not included Agenda: DAY1: Wednesday, February 6 9 am 5 pm Facilitated session DAY 2: Thursday, February 7 9 am 5 pm Facilitated session DAY 3: Friday, February 8 9 am 12 pm Field trip in Yosemite Valley Contact: RSVP by February 1, 2008 to Jim Bacon, Planner, Yosemite National Park Phone: 209/379-1067 Email: jim_bacon@nps.gov If you require lodging information for the symposium, please contact Jim Bacon at the above address. www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/symposium.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAVE THE DATE! Merced River Plan Public Planning Workshop: Saturday, February 23, 2008 Please join Yosemite National Park for the second Public Planning Workshop devoted to creating a new Merced River Plan. This public workshop will present the DRAFT Outstandingly Remarkable Values (ORV) of the river corridor, and participants will be asked to join in an exercise focusing on Desired Conditions (the future conditions to be achieved) for the ORVs. The Draft ORV Report will be available online beginning Tuesday, February 5, 2008 on the park's website at www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/newmrp.htm. Additional workshop materials will be available online prior to the workshop. Please RSVP to Elexis Mayer by phone at 209/379-1377 or by email: elexis_mayer@nps.gov, no later than Wednesday, February 20, 2008. Tuolumne River Plan Public Planning Workshop: On February 9, 2008 from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm in the Valley Visitor Center Auditorium, the NPS will host the next in its ongoing series of public planning workshops. The workshop will focus on developing indicators of river health and quality visitor experiences for the Tuolumne River Plan. Workshop details will be posted to the park's website at www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/trp.htm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember to submit comments for Vogelsang Backcountry Utilities Improvement Project Public scoping for this project opened on Tuesday, January 15, 2008, and will be open until February 13, 2008. A link to project information will be posted on the park's website at www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/vogelsang.htm. A public meeting will take place on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 from 1 pm to 5 pm during the monthly Open House in the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center Auditorium. Comments can be submitted at public meetings, by mail, fax, email, and through the Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) commenting system. A draft document will be available for public review in summer 2008. To request a hard copy or CD ROM version of the Environmental Assessment and to submit written comments: Mail: Superintendent, Yosemite National Park Attn: Vogelsang Backcountry Utilities Improvement Project PO Box 577 Yosemite, CA 95389 Fax: 209/379-1294 Email: YOSE_planning@nps.gov PEPC: http://parkplanning.nps.gov For more information on park planning efforts, visit the website at www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt