Blueprint for Yosemite’s Future Ready

A long-awaited plan designed to reduce crowding and honor the natural majesty of Yosemite National Park is scheduled to be released today by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

The Yosemite Valley Plan envisions sharp reductions in vehicle traffic, fewer overnight visitors, increased public transportation and a restoration of nature from the banks of the Merced River to the foot of Yosemite Falls.

The 10-year, $343-million blueprint is expected to influence nearly every aspect of the experience of the 4 million people annually who visit the 7-mile-long, mile-wide valley that John Muir insisted be preserved as one of America’s great natural temples.

Such changes have made little progress in the two decades since they were first suggested. But the new plan fills in the specific details and benefits from $105 million in repair funds set aside by Congress after a 1997 flood.

The improvements will be phased in gradually, depending on additional funding and the approval of specific project plans.

Even before the final release of the five-volume tome, most major environmental groups were lining up in expectation of supporting its balance of biological restoration and visitor services. But some critics said it would over-commercialize Yosemite Valley and make it too expensive for some families.

“It’s the grandest of plans for Yosemite that is as bright as Yosemite’s granite and clear as the waters of the Merced River,” said Jay Watson, regional director of the Wilderness Society.

Sierra Club member Joyce Eden, a frequent National Park Service critic, said she sees the proposal as “a massive development plan . . . filled with smoke-and-mirrors obfuscation.”

If adopted next month, as expected, by the Western region director of the National Park Service, the plan would:

* Reduce the number of day parking spaces in Yosemite Valley by more than two-thirds to 550, encouraging most visitors to park at three other locations and ride shuttle buses into the heart of the park.

* Cut the number of overnight accommodations by 274--with removal of some of the hundreds of tent cabins at Curry Village and Housekeeping Camp and construction of a lesser number of heated, year-round cabins at new locations.

* Move housing for more than 550 employees of the Park Service and Yosemite Concession Services out of the crowded valley and to new locations, including El Portal and Wawona.

* Remove the old, overrun Cascade Dam and Sugarpine Bridge from the Merced River and eliminate most development from a 300-foot-wide zone around the channel to protect the Merced, designated a wild and scenic river by Congress.

* Shut a 3.2-mile section of a main thoroughfare, Northside Drive, to vehicle traffic. The plan, dependent on reducing traffic 55%, then calls for converting the road to a bicycle and walking path, from Yosemite Lodge to El Capitan.

The final plan arrives after 7 1/2 months of hearings across the state and nation, provoking more than 10,000 comments, letters and e-mails. Babbitt personally intervened in the drafting of the final report. He has said he regards the Yosemite Valley Plan as central to the Clinton administration’s environmental legacy.

The public responded favorably to most of the plan’s broad strokes, particularly the call to reduce automobile traffic and restore 176 acres of meadows, woodlands and riverbanks that had been subject to human development. But others were less sanguine, if their favorite attraction or overnight accommodation was threatened with destruction.

The subject of rooms and campsites in Yosemite Valley inspired a particularly intense debate, with the Park Service’s final plan striking a balance between removal of old facilities and construction of new ones. The plan envisions considerably fewer tent cabins at Curry Village and Housekeeping Camp and fewer motel-style rooms at Yosemite Lodge. But new cabins with heat and plumbing will be built at the lodge and at Curry Village, replacing some of the lost rooms.

The valley’s natural environment dictated those changes, Interior Department officials said. At Curry Village, 253 tent cabins marked for removal lie in the path of frequent rockslides. Another 164 tent units that face demolition at Housekeeping Camp stand in the flood plain of the Merced River.

In proposing the construction of new, heated cabins, planners said they were trying to accommodate more visitors in winter months. “As long as you are going to have some development there, why not have something that is attractive to visitors year-round?” said one Interior Department official, who asked not to be named before the formal release of the plan.

The changes will have a mixed effect on the cost of an overnight stay in Yosemite.

Lost will be more than 400 of the traditional tent cabins that, at $45 a night, have been one of the cheapest ways to stay in the valley. Also gone will be more than 100 of the motel rooms at Yosemite Lodge that cost about $100 a night.

But some of those reductions would be offset, at Curry Village and Yosemite Lodge, by the construction of more than 200 cabin rooms that are expected to be in the “economy” price range of about $77 a night.

Finally, the Park Service plans to add 25 campgrounds, for a total of more than 500 throughout the valley. That does not approach the nearly 800 campgrounds that existed before the Merced River reasserted its true boundaries in the massive flooding of 1997. But it is more than were proposed in the draft plan released last March.

Campsites go for $15 a night.

Some environmental groups said they were comfortable with that mix. But others worried that some families would be unable to find, or afford, a place to stay.

“I feel like this really is trying to force people out of an area that they have been going to for years,” said Jo Anne Ybaben of Orange County, who complained in a letter to the Park Service. “I have been going to Yosemite for years and I feel like I am being forced out.”

The plan’s most concerted effort, however, will be to change the long-standing habits of millions of visitors who have tended to simply drive into the valley to park and ogle the granite giants, El Capitan and Half Dome, or to stare in wonder at some of North America’s most spectacular waterfalls.

With just one-third the number of parking spaces on the valley floor, the Park Service hopes most people visiting for the day in the future will arrive by bus or not depend on the 550 parking spaces on the valley floor.

It will be about a half-hour drive to the valley from the three designated locations for day parking: the so-called Hazel Green property on California 120, with 720 spaces; the town of El Portal on California 140, the principal route into the valley, with 370 spaces, and the Badger Pass ski area to the south, with 400 spaces.

Visitors shuttled from those locations will arrive at a new central transit terminal and parking area, just south of Yosemite Village, also designed to serve tour buses and those lucky enough to find space for their cars.

A new visitors center will be built alongside the transit depot to provide a more central and coherent arrival point for tourists. Visitors have long said they find the current village layout confusing because it spreads parking, services and park facilities over several acres.

Tourists then will have the option of walking, bicycling or taking another shuttle bus to their final destinations. Once there, they will find many locations returned to a more natural state.

The private, nonprofit Yosemite Fund has already committed to a two-year project to restore meadows and a forest at the base of Yosemite Falls, where an expansive parking lot and fleets of tour buses have degraded the spectacular view.

The asphalt and an antiquated restroom will be torn out. A new restroom will be constructed, along with displays on natural and human history and pathways to make the lower falls accessible to wheelchairs.

Myriad other changes would alter the face of the nearly 100-year-old park. The Park Service and Yosemite Concession Services will move their administrative offices outside to the gateway community of El Portal or some other location. Ahwahnee and Stoneman meadows will be cleared of old buildings, utility lines and construction fill. Day horseback rides will be eliminated to lessen trail damage and prevent conflicts between riders and hikers. (Trails would remain open to those bringing in their own horses.) The renowned campsite of climbers, Camp 4, will be increased in size and spared from the development of nearby employee housing, as previously planned.

A historic apple orchard at Curry Village will be removed, as will a tennis court at the Ahwahnee Hotel. But the historic log inn will remain mostly untouched by the plan. New and added camping spots will be built for a variety of different uses, from walk-in locations for those without cars, to the valley’s first spaces with electrical and sewage hookups for recreational vehicles.

Park Service officials said they have not entirely discounted the possibility of more severe measures to reduce crowding, if voluntary tactics don’t succeed.

One option would be to create a checkpoint midway through the valley near El Capitan--prohibiting cars to drive farther east on crowded summer days. Another option would be to create a reservation system and cap the number of visitors into the park each day.

“We can do those things eventually if we have to,” said the Interior Department official, “but we want to try a whole bunch of other, voluntary things first.”

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Yosemite Changes

U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is expected today to release a 10-year, $343-million blueprint for reconfiguring development in Yosemite Valley. The plan centralizes a bus depot, visitors center and shuttle services near Yosemite Village. It moves tent cabins out of the Merced River flood plain and a rock fall zone while adding year-round, heated cabins elsewhere. The plan would:

1. Preserve Sunnyside Campground (also known as Camp 4) and add 28 camp spots at the renowed gathering area for climbers.

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2. Add six rooms at Yosemite Lodge and convert nearly half the 251 units from motel rooms to lower-priced cabins.

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3. Remove a parking lot and restore meadow and forest at the base of lower Yosemite Falls, curbing tour bus traffic and allowing access primarily by shuttle bus.

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4. Construct a central 550-space day parking lot and transit center on the current site of employee housing and a supermarket.

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5. Remove concrete and canvas cabins at Housekeeping Camp from the Merced River flood plain, cutting the number of units from 264 to 100.

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6. Remove Sugar Pine Bridge and consider removal of historic Stoneman Bridge, to restore more natural flow of Merced River.

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7. Reduce the number of rustic tent cabins from 427 to 174 in a rockslide zone at Curry Village. Increase the number of cabins with heat and plumbing from 181 to 288 to accommodate more winter visitors. Build a supermarket to replace the market in Yosemite Village.

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8. Maintain closure of Upper and Lower River Campgrounds and part of Lower Pines Campground. All closed after 1997 flood

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Fewer Rooms at the Park

The Yosemite Valley plan moves most day parking and employee housing out of Yosemite Valley to surrounding areas. It decreases the number of overnight accommodations for visitors and restores some campgrounds and other areas to their natural state.

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Present March draft Final plan Valley parking spaces 1,662 550 55 Employee housing units 1,277 683 723 Ahwahnee rooms 123 123 123 Yosemite Lodge rooms 245 386 251* Curry Village rooms 628 420 487** Housekeeping Camp rooms 264 52 100 Campsites 475 465 500 Total accommodations 1,735 1,446 1,461

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*Would include 134 of current motel-style units but convert 117 other units to more rustic cabins.

**Would reduce number of rustic tent cabins from 427 to 174 and increase number of full cabins with heat and plumbing from 181 to 288.