YOSEMITE UPDATE 3/98
"Change is Inevitable; Struggle is Optional"
Last summer the Friends of Yosemite Valley (an organization formed by Tom Frost, Greg Adair, and myself) produced a brochure called "Yosemite Crisis: Hotels or Campsites" which described the untold truth of the development that was planned in the area around Camp 4. Since then, climbers and other environmentally minded individuals and organizations, including the Sierra Club, have been joining the protest of the Yosemite Lodge Plan. The Yosemite Lodge Design Concept Plan (DCP) was put released in April of 1997, and the plan was approved with minor modifications shortly after the comment period ended May 16 during which 197 comments were received. Despite misleading figures to the contrary, it became clear that the plan resulted in a net loss of 8 acres of undeveloped land around the Lodge area, and compressed Camp 4 into a smaller area hemmed in by a cultural center to the west, multi-story employee housing to the south as well as in the current east end of Camp 4, and filled the Swan Slab area with new luxury hotels and a 85 car parking lot. The placement of the parking lot in the Swan Slab area really choked me: couldn't the planners see the trees? Dozens of hundred foot high Ponderosa Pines would be cut. Some of those trees are my favorite in Yosemite; high in their branches is the perfect place for an wilderness adventurer to detune back into the society of cars and noise. I couldn't believe they were even thinking it, since the original act of congress in 1890 which established Yosemite National Park specifically stated as one of the purposes "to preserve all timber"!
It soon became clear that there were stronger forces at work: as interest in the facts about the Lodge Plan was growing, the National Park Service released the Draft Yosemite Valley Implementation Plan (VIP), a 292 page document outlining four alternatives to other areas in Yosemite Valley. The Lodge plan was conspicuously absent. In color-coded maps of the Valley floor noted areas which were to be newly developed (blue) and areas which were to be restored (green!), the Lodge plan remained white. It was noted in the VIP that the Lodge Plan as outlined in the DCP (April 1997) were considered "existing conditions" and was assumed in all the given alternatives. As public comment roared about the VIP, it became clearer and clearer that all the development that was proposed by the NPS could not be assessed properly until all the development, including the Lodge area, was considered together, and conservation organizations and individuals demanded that the Lodge DCP be considered as part of the Yosemite VIP.
Getting tired of all the rhetoric that climbers and folks concerned about the Camp 4 area were getting by the park service, Tom Frost organized legal council. Dick Duane and Larry Silver (a lawyer formerly with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) concluded that the National Park Service, when making the construction plan details of the Lodge area, failed to meet the legal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Tom has since been organizing climbers to join the lawsuit, which he plans to file before the construction takes place. So far, Greg Adair, John Bachar, Jim Bridwell, Yvon Chouinard, Peter Croft, Hans Florine, Tom Frost, Warren Harding, Lynn Hill, Peter Mayfield, Royal Robbins, Galen Rowell, and myself have agreed to sign on.
No one is happy about the fact that legal action has to be considered. However, the park service is showing no signs of ceasing the planned development and encroachment of Camp 4, despite our reasonable and justified protests. The agenda that the NPS has put forth is will strangle the essence of Camp 4, Yosemite's finest and one of the few remaining walk-in campgrounds, a place of history, and perfectly in line of what all our parks should emphasize: a low amenity place where a basecamp can be set up for forays into the wilderness. We are hoping to stop the construction process so we can re-discuss our needs intelligently. Once we are given a reasonable voice in the discussion, the American Alpine Club can lead future negotiations of the retention of the historical structure of Camp 4.
John Middendorf