AND NEXT COME THE CONDOS, I ASSUME?

Please excuse my week-long absence. Summer session is becoming a bit hectic as it nears its conclusion, and this past weekend I went here:



That's Vernal Falls, which is, of course, within the yummy confines of Yosemite National Park. From friday through sunday I went camping and hiking with Laurie and her family. I posted the Vernal picture (from the SF Chron, one sec) because among places, I took the Mist Trail (better known as the "Fathers holding hands with crying 7-year-old sons Trail") to the top, which was nice.

Anyway, speaking of Yosemite, a bit under the radar, the Bush administration is wavering on its adherence to the Clinton-era "Valley Plan", which was meant to return Yosemite Valley to its past greatness, through reorganization of campground space and restoration of trampled grasslands.

As you might expect, the battle lines in this matter are familiar ones, pitting proponents of increased access against environmental groups looking to conserve the natural beauty of the Valley.

This is not a clean slate situation, for environmental groups can point to results:

If Yosemite Valley has ever looked lovelier than it has in the past year, it was probably during the tenure of John Muir.

Recent restoration programs have rehabilitated trampled meadows, transformed former campgrounds into sun-dappled woodlands and reconfigured eroded, unsightly trails.

(snip)

Approved at the end of the Clinton administration, the Yosemite Valley Plan was adopted after several years of study and about 10,000 public comments.

Under the plan, large portions of forest and meadowland would be restored, hundreds of campsites would be retired, parking spaces would be slashed from 1, 500 to fewer than 600 and an ambitious public transportation system would be instituted.

About 15 projects authorized by the plan are already under way, and the effects are dramatic.

Formerly dog-eared meadows are now luxuriant with native bunchgrasses and perennials.

Milkweed -- a handsome indigenous plant that is the sole food of monarch butterfly larvae -- is especially abundant. The rare butterflies now swarm the milkweed stands in the morning and early afternoon, laying their eggs on the broad, light-green leaves.

Two erstwhile campgrounds -- which once supported a total of 350 campsites and were inundated by a 1997 flood on the Merced River -- have been utterly transformed. What were formerly two of the busiest places in the valley are now peaceful riparian woodland.

Work is proceeding apace on a multitude of other projects, including the replacement of the valley's old diesel buses with new low-pollution shuttle vehicles.

Despite such progress, Republican Congressman George Radanovich (CA) has other ideas about the park's direction:

Radanovich's bill, introduced July 14, would overturn much of the valley plan.

Radanovich, the Mariposa Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Land, wants to rebuild about 150 campsites in the old river campgrounds, increase parking spaces in the valley and quash the shuttle project.

In a dig at the Sierra Club, Radanovich's bill also calls for the demolition of the LeConte Memorial Lodge, a historic building that the conservation group occupies under a special use permit from the National Park Service.

Initially, it looked like the bill didn't have much of a chance because the Bush administration supported the valley plan.

But during the past week, administration officials have drifted from four- square support of the plan to ambiguity.

"We have not taken a final position on (the Radanovich bill)," said Craig Manson, assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the Department of the Interior.

"The administration has not repudiated the valley plan, but we talk to Congressman Radanovich and his staff on an almost daily basis. We are willing to work with him and other interests. We want cooperative solutions."

Question for Mr Manson, Interior, and the administration: how exactly is the demolition of a historic building used by the Sierra Club part of a "cooperative solution"? Now now, I'm not saying such an act was the administration's idea (it was Radanovich's), nor is there any indication that such an aspect of the bill is necessarily endorsed by the White House. But there is no other explanation for that part of the bill besides pissing off environmentalists. This could be seen as a window into the psyche behind the construction of the plan on the whole.

Don't believe me? Consider the ANWR drilling debate. Even if that had gone forward, it would be more than half a decade before a single drop of oil would have been produced, let alone millions of barrels. The point of such a project was nothing more than a Bush/Cheney/Norton/Abraham middle-finger at environmentalists and conservationists. They knew how angry such groups would be if they sent their drills up there, and how they would angrily squirm if drilling began. How fitting it would have been for their juvenile "I want to see liberals cry in pain and defeat" philosophies. Sure, it was convenient that they could try to brand opponents to Alaskan oil drilling as Saddamites who wanted us to keep doing business with our friends in the mideast (quite a thin-ice argument by the anti-environment right indeed). But the psychological underpinning behind the ANWR idea was more about schoolyard bully tendencies than anything else.

The same probably goes for Radanovich's Yosemite bill. He overlooks the fact that campground space within the borders of the park is actually increasing. Sure, not all of it is in the valley. But having just spent the weekend camping in the Valley (Upper Pines #153, to be exact), a few things:

1) During the day, you'll probably be going to the valley anywhere, no matter where in the park you camp; the new public transportation programs will certainly cater more to that need, and
2) At night in the valley, you're camping in a campground surrounded by trees. Thus, you can't see shit!! Qualitatively, camping in and out of the valley are about the same!
3) Having driven up to the valley this past weekend -- a very busy weekend I might add -- and being the 3rd car in my group, I had to park away from my actual campsite, and I discovered that I had almost no problems at all finding parking, even at noon on sunday by Lower Y. Falls.
4) Though getting a reservation is tough (it's the best park in America, thus it's popular, duh!), camping is extremely affordable.

Ok, I'm done on this one for now.