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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Jun 19, 2011 - 12:16am PT
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Dingus: Right. Let nothing stand in the way of your hyperbole, branches included.
Thats the 2nd time you've said that out of context. hyperbole means exaggeration. I wasn't exaggerating. I once watched a Yos ranger on tv talk about the destructiveness of bolts, while literally, within a 1/4 mile they were in fact paving a new road, where in boulders were leveled and all kinds of vegetation flattened. I see this in actuality all of the time.
Not hyperbole at all. Git yerself a new word der Dingus. If all you can do is attack me, and not even approach discussing what I say or infer, then you obviously have no arrangement to make.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Jun 19, 2011 - 11:31am PT
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I'm with Rokjox in his post above. (Wow, I agree with Rokjox!)
The Valley is a beautiful place that needs to be an attraction for as many people as possible while maintaining as much natural beauty as possible. In other words, I think the management license should go to Disney. They are really good at keeping everything clean and showing a good time to huge crowds.
For a wilderness experience, you have to hike in. For example - the Clark Range in SE Yosemite - very few trails, plenty of clean rock, total wilderness. You could go in there and not see another soul for the entire summer.
I would like to see the roadways taken out and the Valley accesses by a super silent double monorail with elevated people movers. The wildlife, deer, bear, bison, whatever, neatly stocked and managed as tourists glide through with a silent hiss just slightly below treetop level.
Of course the climbers would get to be part of the tourist action and a certain number could be sponsored by the tourist dollars.
And in that utopia future, you would still not get to cut branches around the base of climbs or leave fire rings on top of El Cap.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Jun 19, 2011 - 09:10pm PT
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Seems like a little "trail maintenance" on the North Dome gully descent would go a long ways to preserving it and the surrounding terrain, rather then allowing the massive erosion and multiple pathways that is currently has due to no trail maintenance at all. Just a simple observation
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 19, 2011 - 10:05pm PT
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NDG descent?
and that has WHAT to do with tree limbs being cut?
(not to mention, not an easy place to get a saw into!)
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BooYah
Social climber
Ely, Nv
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Jun 20, 2011 - 12:26am PT
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Also, not a place where one would be that useful...certainly not needed.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Jun 20, 2011 - 08:44pm PT
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Any place where use trails start to impact the area, like N. Dome Gully, it's obvious that management should devote resources.
It's an important part of improving access while lowering impact.
(this statement needs to be incorporated into the NPS mission)
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rangerdanger
Mountain climber
john muir hotel
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Jun 20, 2011 - 09:09pm PT
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Rockjox, don't bring logic or history into this thread it will ruin their witch hunt.
And yeah, the old trail up to the base of the nose is an eroded washed out POS. The new one is way better.
It would have been nice If the park service could have made the new trail and left the old one to restoration but they are to busy putting the cables back up on H.D. building new curbs for the road, and pavilions for the shuttle.
And WTF does power drilling have to do with limbing? Maybe Matt and Bullwinkle can start another thread and provide us with the long list of other climbers that have PD on el cap.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Jun 21, 2011 - 10:04am PT
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Nice rangerdanger.
....I can understand concerns about areas where the "normal public" is likely to come across some impacts that could have been made by climbers... but when I look at it from that perspective, I start thinking about all the buses, the loud motorcycles rumbling through the valley unchecked (I really dislike these, fyi.) the inadequate tent camping situation in the valley and on and on. When I think about all those negatives that over time have become part of an accepted, encroaching degradation of the wilderness experience in the Valley, a few limbed trees seems a tad trite to me.
Thats pretty much a great summation and my thoughts exactly. However, you are breaking the law with your fingernail clippers snapping off a twig, while all that is fine and dandy. [/on and on rant rant rant LOL]
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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Jun 21, 2011 - 11:16pm PT
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Oh no..........Ranger Goober(Gerber) has found another thread to pollute.
Peace
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Big Piton
Trad climber
Ventura
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Jun 22, 2011 - 12:17am PT
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If you believe what has been in put front of you. You are the fool.
There must be more to the story.
I have been watching this story being told by Jessie.
Not a word about the So. Cal guy who has been lost for the past 4 days.
Jesse spending three days on top of El Cap, cleaning Sh_t.
What up's
mmm
Jesse, where is.................HE
Leo is not your friend. FOOL
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corniss chopper
climber
breaking the speed of gravity
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Jul 25, 2011 - 11:04pm PT
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Yosemite plans to remove a few (thousand) trees to improve the views. Bravo!!
No one will be complaining once its done. Can't imagine a tourist getting angry about having a better view of the cliffs and waterfalls.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_18539564
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 26, 2011 - 01:15am PT
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it's about time
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Jul 26, 2011 - 01:20am PT
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Some of those trees even block the views of climbs. Perhaps they should clear the forest so people can take pictures of me sending pitch 4 of The Nutcracker. Who wouldn't want to see that.
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Rainman0915
Trad climber
California
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Jul 26, 2011 - 01:55am PT
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As far as the fire ring goes i heard the employees have been having parties at the base of el cap and cutting and burning wood from the nearby area.
as for the rest of the cutting, i think that its far better to deal with a few stray branches once in a while then create even more problems with NPS/rangers
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Jul 26, 2011 - 02:05am PT
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selling "yosemite valley" timber could fund the park for a generation me thinks.
the Park will probably just lob the logs to the nearest mill and make toothpicks.
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Lennox
climber
just southwest of the center of the universe
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Jul 26, 2011 - 03:48am PT
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I have no love for the NPS LEOs, and yes the Yos NPS caters to the concession and tourists, but . . .
I suppose we should really just let everybody do as they think best . . .
For instance, a lot of people believe that grafitti is alright, a kind of free speech--let's invite the inner city youth into Yosemite and encourage them to improve it as they see fit.
If you have a license to handle explosives--well just go ahead and make your own stairway up to the Devil's Bathtubs.
If you work in construction and have access to a jackhammer I'm sure you can do a better likeness of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh than that of those old dead guys on Mt. Rushmore.
Or, hey, even better if you operate a bulldozer or grader, you could just go ahead and make your own road up to the base of El Cap so you don't have to get out of your car next time.
And I'm sure we all agree that Yosemite would be much better if every mo fo with a chainsaw could just do whatever they think will improve their experience . . .
Or are climbers just so much more enlightened that only they should be able to do whatever the fvck they want?
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Lennox
climber
just southwest of the center of the universe
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Jul 26, 2011 - 04:11am PT
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E is trying to make things more comfortable and convenient for you. But you all are getting focused on another regrettable problem--the NPS and tourists--one doesn't make the other one right, even though the NPS has a greater impact; yet if everyone could do as E is doing I think they could do much more harm. But the apologists or thread-drifters are giving tacit approval to just that
He's trundled rocks from ledges to make bivies "better", he's levelled and terraced areas of the base of El Cap for the same reason, he's power-drilled 3/8" bolts to replace dowels and rivets for the same reason, and now he--as usual during the winter so he won't be caught--is cutting branches to re-create Yosemite to his vision as a "better" place for us all.
Damn those Manzanitas can scratch, why don't we ask E to pour some Roundup on all those fvckers.
The Yosemite experience has been Disneyfied enough by the park service for the tourists, but do you all really want someone, or hundreds of someones, out there gymnifying and Disneyfying your experience to what he thinks is best for you? Is climbing supposed to be convenient and comfortable?
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jstan
climber
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Jul 26, 2011 - 05:09am PT
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I think an essential factor is being missed when we ask why we can't do something but the NPS can.
There are a million of us.
There is only one NPS.
What the NPS does gets reviewed.
The million of us get reviewed only if we run into a ranger.
Do the math.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Jul 29, 2011 - 09:09pm PT
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Limbing is problematic. Taking photos of it and putting them in the mag, more so.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Jul 30, 2011 - 01:01am PT
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It's typical government craziness that makes it illegal to even slightly trim a branch, even with the tree is not harmed, when they will turn around and saw down over a thousand trees just to improve the views. I'm fine with them cutting the trees. I really dislike the needless control they seem to feel they need to exert over us and the hypocrisy like this that I see all of the time.
Dingus, what word was that you like to use again...and again? Hyperbole. Yes, you think this is more hyperbole from me?
"By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
July 29, 2011, 7:22 p.m.
Reporting from Yosemite National Park -- National parks tend to be a tree hugger's paradise. Layers of federal laws, strict park service rules and even the disapproving scowls from some visitors prohibit so much as driving a nail into a tree, much less cutting one down.
But it's getting a bit crowded in Yosemite, where more than a hundred years of prompt firefighting have allowed towering pines and cedars to clog the park's meadows and valleys. These days, you can barely see the granite for the trees.
That's about to change. Yosemite National Park officials say thousands of trees will be felled to preserve the iconic views of the park's waterfalls and the craggy faces of El Capitan and Half Dome. For the Record: This article incorrectly refers to Yosemite as the country's first national park. Yellowstone was the first national park. The project is part of Yosemite's Scenic Vista Management Plan, approved by the park service's regional office this week.
Chain saws will be fired up in the fall, said Supt. Don Neubacher, aimed mainly at ponderosa pines and incense cedars. Rare or ecologically sensitive trees such as California black oaks, sugar pines and white bark pines will be spared. None of the park's thousand-year-old sequoias will be cut, nor will any trees more than 130 years old.
In public meetings and in person, park officials and rangers have been making the case that their tree-cutting plan is biologically sound and aims to improve visitor enjoyment of the park's natural features. To that end, much of the thinning will be done along the park's roads and turnouts, where carloads of tourists pile out to snap pictures of Bridalveil or Yosemite falls.
Still, the public has let park officials know that there is something unseemly about the image of lumberjacks hewing mighty trees in the country's oldest national park.
Neubacher understands visitors' concerns about cutting trees in Yosemite, but says "this will create views for visitors, views that were here before."
Yosemite was set aside as the nation's first national park in part because of the magnificent, wall-to-wall vistas afforded by its open meadows. Painters and early landscape photographers captured what are now emblematic images of the West: broad valleys rimmed by granite cliffs with spilling waterfalls.
Those open valley floors were maintained first by Native Americans who regularly set fires to clear trees, or by blazes sparked by lightning. Travelers in the 19th century grazed their livestock in the Yosemite Valley and planted crops, relegating trees to the edges of the meadows.
When landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted prepared a report on the Yosemite region in 1865, he singled out the deep-cleft valleys for particular praise, calling the sight "the greatest glory of nature."
But the park service moves quickly to stamp out fires that might otherwise thin the stands of trees that spread their seedlings into meadows. Some of those saplings are now towering to 100 feet, spoiling the party for tourists seeking to immortalize their vacation with a postcard backdrop.
Officials here have been thinking about the sightline issue for some time. In 2009, the park analyzed 181 scenic views around Yosemite, excluding wilderness areas. The survey revealed that encroaching vegetation obscured the view at 28% of the sites and partially blocked it at 54% of them.
"We are managing the park for people," said Kevin McCardle, a park service historical architect who headed up the scenic vista team. "We have to create roads, we have to create parking lots, we have to create space for people. We are creating space for visitors to see the park."
Visitors on a recent day seemed mostly unaware of the park's plans to fell trees near meadows, roads and along some lakes — 93 sites in all. Gary Lockhart was striding briskly along a Yosemite Valley trail, carrying a tree limb as a walking stick. He said he hadn't heard of the new policy, but thought it was a good idea.
"I've been coming here since the '50s and I know what this used to look like. You used to be able to see from there," he said, waving his stick to one end of the valley, "to there."
"This valley was wide open," said Lockhart, who lives in Bakersfield. "This place is honeycombed with trails, but you'd never know because of the trees."
Of course, Half Dome, at 8,800 feet, is difficult to miss. But stands of pines gather at one end of a meadow along the Merced River, and at the far end trees clog the view of Yosemite Falls. And in some cases, a full view other well-known scenes may elude amateur photographers, especially as fast-growing conifers continue to fill in.
John Rienzie was resting on log bench, gazing across two lanes of a Yosemite summer traffic jam, enjoying the sight of the late-afternoon sun lingering on the crest of Half Dome. He pondered the policy for some time before saying he would agree "if there is a purpose to it."
After a moment, the New Yorker asked again why it was necessary. To improve the views for visitors, he was told.
He looked up quizzically, "If you can't see that mountain, " he said, stabbing a finger at the distant granite wall, "you need to have your glasses checked."
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