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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Jul 24, 2016 - 01:56pm PT
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Actually the NPS has made some great improvements over the years. In the early 50s you could stand on the Valley rim looking down and you could only see the tops of the trees poking through the campfire and exhaust smog. You could barely drive around the Valley for all the traffic at times.
My first job as a ranger in Yosemite (1959) was to be in charge of the Valley campgrounds. On Memorial Day and July 4 there would be 16,000 campers in the campgrounds. No reservations. They were not unitized - people could pitch a tent anywhere in the campground, park anywhere. Some would pitch a tent over the water faucets so they'd have running water. Guy lines often overlapped. One of the seasonal rangers' frequent jobs was to mediate disputes due to overcrowding. There were charred campfire logs and fire pits everywhere.
There was a dump over on the S. side not all that far from Curry. People used to go there to watch the bears, which were a pretty scraggly garbage-fed lot. Stoneman meadow was trampled flat by Fire Fall watchers.
There was another retail center at what was called Old Village, near the chapel - with a movie theatre, coffee shop which we named the Greasy Spoon and where much pre-climb discussion went on about the Nose. There was a Degnan's beer garden there too. Jack Morehead and I appreciated the place as we'd go climbing on a hot day, intentionally take too little water, and rush back to the beer garden after to rehydrate with beer. Damn that was good!
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JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
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Jul 24, 2016 - 04:31pm PT
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In Spring 1957 ,i drove my brother to Yosemite Valley to start a job at the Curry Cafeteria in my new MGA .We took Big Oak Flat Road because I had read it was more interesting than the Mariposa route .Never had heard anything about any climbing there until some young people started climbing up the Nose of El Capitan that July .
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Jul 24, 2016 - 04:35pm PT
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You had a new MGA? Lucky bastard! Do you still have it?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 24, 2016 - 05:03pm PT
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^^^that was cool. it does make sense right, to rebel on Independence Day!
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JOEY.F
Gym climber
It's not rocket surgery
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Jul 24, 2016 - 06:03pm PT
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Thanks Z!
On my way out Saturday afternoon I counted 325 vehicles waiting to get in via the Big Oak Flat entrance...
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jul 24, 2016 - 06:48pm PT
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Considering the huge population increase in CA, the increase in the U.S. and worldwide, the larger number of visitors from China & Japan, etc. Yosemite is holding its own. The NPS is doing a balancing act, all things considered, they are doing pretty well.
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Jul 25, 2016 - 04:20am PT
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I plan to 'Fastpass' Royal Arches and Nutcracker
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Jul 27, 2016 - 10:57am PT
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hardly a new problem in the valley
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tioga_Road_(HAER_No._CA-149)_written_historical_and_descriptive_data
. . . . in 1929 Dr. Donald Tressider of the Yosemite Park & Curry Company proposed a cable car system to convey visitors from the Valley up to Tenaya Lake. An engineer from the Adolph Bleichert Company of Austria made a study of the route, and suggested that two cable systems would be required to span the long distance and two steep grades involved. Another cableway was proposed for Glacier Point. The Yosemite National Park Board of Expert Advisors seriously considered these proposals, finding some merit in that the cableways would alleviate some congestion on the Tioga Road. But in the end the proposals were rejected on account of the inescapable high visibility of the system and a fear that visitors would find trams an unnatural attraction, rather than a means of transportation. . ..
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