Yosemite Superintendent Still in Awe of Spectacular Environs

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — It’s showtime at Yosemite, where tourists stand transfixed amid soaring waterfalls and flowering dogwoods.

But for Supt. B.J. Griffin, summer in Yosemite means bumper-to-bumper traffic and the pressing question of how to preserve the park’s beauty while welcoming visitors.

It’s Griffin’s second summer overseeing the spectacular section of the Sierra that became one of the nation’s first national parks more than a century ago, thanks to naturalist John Muir.

At 54, she became the first woman to head a major national park when she was named superintendent in February 1995. Her debut year was marked by natural disasters, freak accidents and the kidnapping of a park employee. Recently, another freak accident took the life of a tourist, when a chunk of rock broke loose and rained rubble on the Happy Isles campground.

Griffin herself is recuperating from recent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor.

These days, Griffin is concentrating on her vision of protecting Yosemite’s 1,200 square miles of bountiful beauty while sharing it with visitors.

“I am always in awe--it never fades--of what I am responsible for,” she said. “To have this precious space to keep healthy and whole for the American people: To me, it’s a very exciting but also a humbling thought.”

The mission is daunting. Attendance at Yosemite has swelled by one-third over the last decade, from 3 million visitors in 1986 to 4.1 million in 1995.

Rangers have had to turn visitors away at the gate occasionally during the summer season, which starts the weekend before Memorial Day and lasts through Labor Day.

“On a peak summer day, it can take you an hour to get to Curry Village from [Yosemite] Lodge,” she said. “The kids are in the back seat screaming, ‘When are we going to eat?’ That cannot be part of the Yosemite experience.”

Over the years, visitors and cars have trampled fragile vegetation and have pushed native animals like the peregrine falcon and bighorn sheep toward extinction.

In 1980, the National Park Service issued a general management plan to restore nature and reduce traffic in Yosemite.

Sixteen years later, park officials are completing proposals to install large parking lots west of the park, shuttle buses and day-use reservations. Officials plan to solicit public opinion on the proposals in the fall. Some have criticized the plans as lacking vision, while others say implementation is taking too long.

Yosemite shares federal funding with 369 other national parks, some of which don’t even have visitors’ centers yet, she said. She spends much of her time in meetings with state and local park officials, members of Congress, lobbyists and environmentalists.

Indeed, in more than 25 years with the National Park Service, Griffin has earned a reputation as a negotiator skilled in budget analysis and management.

A native of Shreveport, La., she was 22 when she landed a temporary job as a clerk for the agency in Virginia. “It was complete serendipity,” she said.

Within 10 years, she was working as a budget analyst in Atlanta. In 1984, she became superintendent of her first site, the fort Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine, Fla.

She came to Yosemite as assistant superintendent in 1987 before heading regional operations in San Francisco and in Philadelphia until last year.

Along the way, she earned a degree in business administration, graduating magna cum laude from Atlanta’s Mercer University; reared a son; and resurrected her high school nickname, “B.J.,” because the park service already had a “Barbara,” her given name.

Griffin, who admits she never saw a national park until she was in her 20s, first toured Yosemite as a visitor in 1979. Driving up Highway 41 through the Wawona Tunnel and emerging to a view of Yosemite Valley was “overwhelming,” she said.

She still tries to see as much of the park as she can, covering the vast back country by horseback or on foot.

“The valley is extremely dramatic. There’s no more drama per square foot than what we have right here,” she said. “But the colors you get when the rivers are flowing over those rocks, the high alpine meadows, it’s just stunning. It brings tears to your eyes.”

Yosemite, she says, is the pinnacle of her career. She knows that in three or five years she may leave her post without seeing a day-use reservation system, shuttle buses or a thriving herd of bighorn sheep.

But she says she’ll be satisfied having made the decisions that will lead to fulfillment of her vision.

“Being a part of planning its future and knowing you’ve got direct input--that’s a wonderful part of the job,” she said. “Being superintendent of Yosemite, which is to many people around the world the symbol of scenic splendor, is just the most wonderful feeling.”