Commercialism in the National Park System is readily apparent. Just look at the publicity generated over the past nine months from concessionaire tactics at Yosemite National Park and Grand Canyon National Park to leverage profits by trademarking place names long associated with the two icons.
In a book out this month, former Yosemite Superintendent Robert Binnewies set out to warn us of the "collision between commercialism and preservation" in the parks. But he falls short of truly driving his point home.
The 336-page book from White Cloud Press provides interesting narratives on Native American history in Yosemite and whether mountainmen in the 1830s visited the Yosemite Valley. Too, Mr. Binnewies fleshes out the connections of John Muir and Ansel Adams to the park, and details the rise of lodging and other concessions in the valley.
We're given a fairly thorough primer on how Donald Tresidder came to the Curry Co. and how he successfully grew it into the Yosemite Valley's largest concessionaire. Queen Elizabeth's visit to the park in 1983 also merited a good deal of attention from the author, as does backcountry trail building and a daunting high-country search-and-rescue mission in January 1982.
But what he fails to do is draw back the curtain fully on his dealings with Ed Hardy, president of the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, and on how staunchly he fought behind the scenes to implement the General Management Plan adopted for Yosemite in 1980, a plan that said "Yosemite is too valuable to use for administration, maintenance, parking or any commercial services that do not contribute directly to a quality park experience....," but which was later put on the shelf unfulfilled.
Mr. Binnewies does mention briefly that "the political changes that had occurred soon after I assumed my post caused the NPS to go into a holding pattern; facilities in the Yosemite Valley flood plain and talus boulder zones near the cliffs that had been identified for removal in the GMP, many of them concessionaire accommodations, remained anchored in place. So, too, did the NPS housing and the ponderous maintenance yard, also targeted for removal."
But we're not privvy to what, if anything, he did within his realm of authority to see the plan implemented and how he was thwarted.
In endorsing the book, Yvone Chouinard, a well-known climber who rose to fame scaling Yosemite's big walls, writes that, "Yosemite withstands great pressures to change it; more cars, more shops, more clamor; more of everything. This book is a plea to hold the preservation line and to hold politicians and park managers accountable if they try to cross it."
The book would be more valuable if it provided some insights into how park managers might hold "the preservation line." Instead, this is a book dealing more with Yosemite's history, not on the dangers of commercialism and how a superintendent spent a good deal of his time working to protect the park's resources from it.
Comments
I'm well aware of Yosemite's vast backcountry, ECBuck. I've hiked literally every trail in the Park, climbed all of its major peaks and many of its granite walls, domes, and spires. I'm not an anti-democratic-access elitist who would seek to keep Yosemite Valley for a few privileged individuals, but it is being "loved to death". I support tearing down all the lodging and banning personal motor vehicles from the Valley. Day visitors, campers, hikers, and climbers would be shuttled in by bus. Rich or poor, you'd have access to the Valley but no longer by your own car and if you wanted to stay overnight you'd have to pitch a tent.
To what purpose? What exactly does that accomplish other than inconvenience those that want to enjoy the park in a way different from you.
I am fine, Jeffrey, until you get to the buses part. Why should Yosemite Valley be rimmed with parking lots? As in Europe, I would do light rail. As for the historical structures, they would stay, but yes, you make terrific points about America's persistent loss of wilderness by overdeveloping the national parks. I think light rail would change that entirely by forcing visitors to "think" about their experience--and the "thinking" should begin 100 miles out before they get on the train. What do I need to bring and how much junk can I possibly bring out? The trunk of a car never asks that question. Buses allow it to be postponed. Asphalt is far more intrusive than ribbons of steel placed 39 inches apart. One sliver of railroad the width of a sidewalk is all Yosemite Valley would need.