Honk if You Love Yosemite

It once was possible to purchase, right here on the very floor of the Yosemite Valley, that most treasured of nature souvenirs: a Cadillac. The dealership was located in Curry Village. Tradition dictated that each new park superintendent, as a first official act, visit the dealer and drive away in a Caddie.

Not surprisingly, the Cadillac outlet has gone the way of the valley beauty parlor: Banished from the temple. Automobiles in general have proved more difficult to exterminate, though not from lack of effort. The 1980 Yosemite master plan stated the goal most succinctly: “The intent of the National Park Service is to remove all automobiles from Yosemite Valley. . . .”

While enactment of the master plan has been stalled by financial and political constraints, the anti-automobile movement appears to have found new momentum. The January flood that roared through the valley, wrecking bridges, campgrounds and cabins, also created what many of Yosemite’s guardian angels regard as a golden opportunity to reorder the park to their liking.

As Adam Werbach, Sierra Club president, told a press conference here last month: “We are at a turning point for the future of Yosemite. We must get cars out of Yosemite Valley if it is to remain the crown jewel that has inspired millions of American families.” Polls indicate something like 83% of Californians agree. What follows, then, is a minority report.

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The Yosemite Valley is but a tiny sliver of the entire park. Nonetheless, it commands all the attention--the centerpiece in a never-ending struggle between those who would create a leafy Wally World and those who would give it all back to the bears. The main draw, of course, is the collection of towering rocks and waterfalls that encase the valley. Visitors crane their necks and stare in awe at El Capitan and Half Dome and the rest. Then they shuffle over to the village for a pizza.

Serious hikers and solitude lovers learned long ago to seek their pleasure elsewhere in the park, especially in the summer. This is easily done. Yosemite is vast, with plenty of wild woods for modern Daniel Boones. Still, ranks of these hardies can be seen most any summer night around the valley’s bars and restaurants, wearing what might be called the Yosemite Smirk.

They smirk at the paunchy tourists in baggy shorts. They smirk at the carloads of kids blown in from Fresno for the day. They smirk at the sunburned moms and dads pushing strollers, doing the Chevy Chase car-camper routine. They smirk at the busloads of tourists, the Japanese and Italians and, yes, Los Angelenos come to gawk at the big rocks.

The message in this smirking is obvious: These people have no business here. All this is wasted on these Philistines and should be reserved instead for the enlightened few: People like us. Those who consider this characterization heavy-handed might take note of a recent letter to the San Francisco Chronicle by a would-be Yosemite protector: “The headline for the Jan. 9 Chronicle read ‘Yosemite Closed Indefinitely,’ and I gave a silent cheer. . . .”

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Such elitist attitudes--more than the nuts-and-bolts challenges of establishing a workable shuttle system--are what’s troublesome about calls for an auto-less Yosemite Valley. This is not at heart about keeping out cars. It’s about keeping out the people who drive them. And to what end?

For starters, just as a single fly seems noisy in a quiet room, shuttle buses in an auto-free valley would sound like jet craft backblow. Perfect serenity requires total eviction, Sierra Club members included. Moreover, the valley can protect itself, as the flood so thoroughly demonstrated. No, El Capitan will be standing tall long after the last tent-cabin has crumbled to dust.

Finally, while shuttles and day-use reservations and higher fees--all in the works, post-flood--no doubt will scare away hordes of visitors, this should not be cause for silent cheers from the Gore-tex cherubim. For Yosemite Valley serves a higher purpose than their own enjoyment. It remains today what it has been since the first tourists started rumbling in via stagecoach: a little tacky, yes, but also a terrific tool for the environmental movement.

This place has an awesome power to proselytize, to build a constituency for nature. Many are the paunchy day-trippers who take away from here their first glimmer of insight into what that save-the-whales business is all about. “Born again!” was how John Muir opened his journal entry upon first seeing the valley. He compared it, famously, to a cathedral. Those who would discourage the crass masses from pouring through--by car, bus, moped, blimp or whatever--might consider: What is the point of a church that does not throw open its doors to sinners?