Yosemite Isn't Disneyland, Part Two

This column is an exchange between the President of the Ansel Adams Gallery, located in Yosemite Valley and one of the select members of “Yosemite Partners,” and myself. The letters reflect a strong divergence of views, embodying the debate between giving priority to commercial vs. spiritual values for Yosemite, and by extension, to the remaining wild and majestic places on the earth.

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is one of America’s best-known nature photographers. His black and white “images became the symbols, the veritable icons, of wild America.” The biography from the Ansel Adams Gallery also states that “Adams life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth gesture" of the Yosemite Sierra…from his first visit, Adams was transfixed and transformed.” It also notes “Adams was an unremitting activist for the cause of wilderness and the environment.” That seems ironic, given the defense of commercialization expressed by the Ansel Adams Gallery President.

Dear Martin,

I am very happy for you to have been in Yosemite Valley for such a sublime day as you have described. Those are the days that make even Valley residents giddy with the excitement, feverish to get out and about, if only for a moment. You should count yourself quite fortunate that you had the opportunity to really get out and enjoy it.

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The "problem" you are describing is a "deficiency in reverence" or "a lack of respect for other's appreciation" for the grandeur of Yosemite. I think most people who love the park have felt some similar (and admittedly selfish) frustration about not being able to enjoy to valley in absolute serenity. It is not possible, however, to pre-qualify and exclude visitors to the park based on their existing reverence. We hope that perhaps their experience will instill some sense of that respect for the Earth, and that we will all benefit in the future.

The Yosemite Park Partners (National Park Service, Yosemite Fund, Yosemite Institute, Yosemite Association, Delaware North, and Ansel Adams Gallery) have done quite a bit to restore parts of the valley and to create opportunities for visitors to experience, if not solitude, the beauty and wonder of the valley. The Yosemite Falls trail, which you experienced, is a prime example. A long visit during the day will give you solitude between buses, and a visit early in the morning will offer up a few like-minded individuals. Other projects that will also enhance the visitor experience are planned and/or funded. Each of the Partners offers programs that educate and inform visitors about Yosemite, and attempt to instill that reverence.

Locking up the Valley will not educate people, will not help to build that reverence and respect that can be taken away to all corners of the Earth. Yosemite Valley is developed, and many people visit. Even so, over 85% of the Park is wilderness, and for those who have the time, solitude can be found.

The clock cannot be turned back in Yosemite Valley. It would be great to restore Hetch Hetchy, and in that event, to protect it from development. In a few generations, Hetch Hetchy would offer the sublime AND the solitude.

You are correct. Yosemite is not Disneyland. It is a spectacular natural landscape in the real world with many competing constituencies, and no one with the ability to enforce its will with impunity. Only by educating mankind can we hope to save the planet.

Sincerely,
President
The Ansel Adams Gallery

Dear Matthew,

I'm sorry you misread and misconstrued the content, intent, and spirit of my column, "Yosemite Isn't Disneyland." Fortunately, most readers are not reacting with defensiveness, but seeing the truth in what I'm saying. The column certainly wasn't meant as an attack on Yosemite Partners, nor on Yosemite National Park management, though hitting a nerve often signals hitting the mark.

It is hardly "selfish" to point out how the commercial development of Yosemite Valley robs the experience for those who come for silence and solitude, and indeed, how the present atmosphere makes appreciation more difficult for all visitors. And it is a blatant mischaracterization to say that I am proposing “to pre-qualify and exclude visitors to the park based on their existing reverence.” The charge of “selfish frustration about not being able to enjoy the valley in absolute serenity” is not in the least fair, much less accurate. Your mischaracterizations confirm the depth of the problem, and the entrenchment of interests desiring to maintain the status quo, even though it is unsustainable, for Yosemite Valley and the earth as a whole.

We spent a few days in the Valley without using the car once it was parked, taking shuttles to nearly all stops. There was no corner on the Valley floor where one did not hear cars, buses, garbage truck back-up beepers, etc. Anyone who walks, bikes, and sits finds the same thing. Undeniably, management does not value silence and solitude. There is a city atmosphere amongst residents and visitors to the Valley alike, with a post-card or picture-book reaction to the magnificence for the vast majority of tourists, and a sad obliviousness for nearly all of the park employees I observed. (People do their jobs well, and are helpful, but the constant crush of tourists, and the priority to serve the commercial interests of the park, erode the feeling for Yosemite that prompted most to work there in the first place.)

Echoing the usual line about how “85% of the park is wilderness” will not solve the problem of noise and destruction of the Valley’s core values. It is also misleading, because we are talking about the Valley floor, not the vastly larger surrounding wilderness, to which many do not have access. Giving primacy to the natural and obvious core values for Yosemite Valley of silence and solitude, respect and reverence, does not exclude development, nor require an absence of people. What is required is vision and leadership by those who manage Yosemite Valley, qualities that are in short supply at present.

Setting up a straw man by saying I am proposing “locking up the Valley” is absurd. Restricting vehicular traffic, and emphasizing the essential value of respectful appreciation for Yosemite Valley, would attract more visitors in the long run, not fewer.

A reasonable solution, and transition to the vision of World Spiritual (or Sanctuary) Site for Yosemite Valley that I propose, can be realized with a modicum of vision and leadership in the near term. Instituting a ‘park and ride’ policy, in which visitors could enter the Valley in their own vehicles for overnight stays camping or at hotels (though not for day use), but then be required to use electric shuttle buses to get from place to place, is reasonable and would be widely supported. That’s what we did, and many people do; it’s hardly inconvenient, much less “locking up the Valley.”

From the point of entry where each vehicle pays twenty dollars to visit the Valley, to the following of necessarily stringent rules with respect to leaving food out for bears, the Valley is managed; it is only a question of how. It’s true that commercial values of “competing constituencies” continue to dominate Yosemite Valley, just as they do in the so-called “real world.” But it’s hardly a question of anyone “enforcing [their] will with impunity.” Rather, it’s a question of priority and balance. The priorities are wrong, and a true balance is non-existent.

We obviously have very different ideas about education. That is precisely one of the core values that is being lost in the present ‘Disneyland/Universal Studios/Yosemite Valley’ promotional package mentality that rules Yosemite Valley at present.

Regards,

Martin LeFevre

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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