Yosemite Gets Back to Nature With Extreme Makeover

Cameron Walker
for National Geographic News

April 5, 2005

This spring, visitors to California's Yosemite National Park will get an
added bonus, in addition to the usual blackbird sightings, uncrowded
roads, and other pre-summer perks. They'll be the first to trod the
rehabilitated trails to the base of Yosemite Falls, the highest
waterfall in North America.

The 13.5-million-U.S.-dollar, ten-year project to restore the falls area wraps up on April 18.

The redesign covers 52 acres (21 hectares). It includes areas of native-plant restoration, a loop trail with benches, and interpretive displays about Native American culture and Yosemite history. In addition, the new paths allow disabled access to Yosemite Falls for the first time.

"The Yosemite Falls visit prior to this project was pretty much a photo opportunity," said Bob Hansen, president of the Yosemite Fund, a nonprofit organization that raised most of the project funding. Now the meandering pathways give visitors a greater sense of the park as a whole, he said.

Yosemite Falls is the primary destination when the park's three million annual visitors get out of their cars, Hansen said. "If it's the first place they go, we want them to then want to see the rest of the park," he said.

From Plan to Pathways

Among the project's goals were to get people to experience the park on foot and to reduce automobile traffic, Hansen said. Workers ripped up a parking lot that hosted tour buses and other vehicles and turned it into open space. Parking is still available at a nearby lot.

Now falls visitors will park in a main lot, about a half mile (0.8 kilometer) away from the falls shuttle stop. There, visitors will be able to catch one of the new, zero-emissions, disabled-accessible buses. The bus stop area also connects to trails and bike paths that wind around the valley floor.

Construction started in 2002 and will wrap up this week. "It was almost magical to see how rapidly things changed," said Hansen, who first started exploring the park as a teenager.

But the process wasn't always easy. In the early 1990s the National Park Service knew that the area was in trouble. Overcrowded, cracking pathways and a packed, noisy parking lot detracted from the Yosemite Falls experience.

Hammering out a plan took several years. In 1997 the Merced River flooded, delaying the project even further. The flood shut down Yosemite Valley for nearly three months, wiping out roads, trails, and campgrounds.

"There were days when I thought this project was dead in the water," Hansen said.

In addition, some conservation groups worried the project was a sign of increasing development in the park.

Now that the falls project is nearing completion, some early critics have become supporters, Park Superintendent Mike Tollefson said. And, he said, park visitors love the redesign. "Whenever I'm out walking the trail in uniform, people come up to me [to compliment the overhaul. The visitors are incredibly excited about it."

Environmentally Sensitive Design

Lawrence Halprin, the landscape architect with the project, is known for bringing environmental sensitivity to his designs. In the 1960s he designed the Sea Ranch, a housing and resort development on the northern California coast known for its minimal visual and physical impact on its surroundings.

The Yosemite Falls project used a combination of low-impact materials and careful construction to reduce environmental impact. Stones from a highway wall that was destroyed by the 1997 flood were even used to pave some of the updated paths.

Asphalt was used for much of the new trails. But a newly developed asphalt alternative, which doesn't use petroleum, also makes up some sections of the pathways.

In addition, strategic placement of boulders and downed trees encourages walkers to avoid sensitive areas.

Throughout the process, monitors from several Native American tribes participated in the work. They helped to ensure that the rebuilding did not damage any sites of cultural significance, Hansen said.

According to the Yosemite Fund, approximately 14,000 people, in California and elsewhere in the United States, contributed to the rehabilitation effort. Donations came in from Yosemite lovers from all walks of life, including students at Schallenberger Elementary School in San Jose, California, who contributed a portion of their annual penny drive to the project.

Hansen said the impressive level of support shows how important the park is to the United States.

Park Director Tollefson said the project is the most exciting thing he's been involved with in his park service tenure. And that's saying something: Tollefson has also held the top job at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the southeastern U.S. and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California.

He hopes the projects' greatest success will be its subtlety. While the pathways and stopping places may provide a better walking experience for visitors, he doesn't want the new amenities to outshine the beauty of the park itself.

"We don't want the falls trail to be the reason people go to the falls," Tollefson said.

Free E-Mail News Updates
Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample).