Recent comments

The question of bison grazing did come up. As I recall, we were told that the eventual plan is to replace the cattle grazing with bison grazing. I don't remember if a specific number was given though. I didn't touch on it in the video, but part of the story at the Tallgrass Prairie is that it is a co-managed unit, with the Nature Conservancy playing a tremendously big role in the prairie management. In fact, you can hear the interpreter near the end of the video talking about an entity "paying taxes" on the land -- he's referring to the Nature Conservancy. It would be ultimately up to the Nature Conservancy (I believe), working in partnership with the NPS, to bring the bison back to this range.

Bingo Steve....good interview. Glad that to hear the Park's position on permits. After careful thought, I feel 60% of the people going up the Half Dome trail need education. When you get a wilderness permit, you have to listen to a bear-proof container lecture. If and I say IF, permits for Half Dome were started, I'd recommend that if you get a permit you could not do the hike for 3 days after. That way, you'd have to hear a mini-lecture on safety, water, cables etc -or- read a sheet -or- watch a 15 minute video. Like "drive up/drive back" one-day banshee skiers, one-day Domers could benefit from reasonable guidance. But as Scott said there are no resources to manage and monitor all this.

Rick D.
http://www.HikeHalfDome.com

The last time I checked, a small herd of 25-30 bison was being managed for experimental purposes on a 1,200-acre tract west of the historic ranch house. Whether a large bison herd will ever again roam the preserve is certainly open to question. There seems to be no scientific evidence that bison would be better for the land than cattle. What seems more important is how much grazing of any kind is permitted where and when. The preserve is probably too small to accommodate both bison and cattle in large numbers.

As far as I can tell, the (big-W) Wilderness areas in the contiguous 48 states are all such small islands of wildness surrounded by lands that are in many cases heavily impacted by human presence. Even if we completely eliminated all amenities for human visitors, such as trails, signage, established campsites, and ranger stations, a tremendous amount of management would still be needed just to keep the influences from the adjacent civilization from impacting these places. And most of the wildlife (plant or animal) in the preserves aren't necessarily aware of the boundaries of these preserves anyway, and trying to keep the unimpacted wildlife in, and the impacted wildlife out, is probably impossible.

It was interesting, when I interviewed the Yosemite spokesman, what he had to say about the possibility of limiting day-use access to Half Dome:

So they don't have the resources to manage the traffic, and feel they have higher-priority problems elsewhere in the park to spend their resources on.
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Another story in the Billings Gazette today is reporting Wyoming state representative Colin Simpson as saying the final draft when it is published will allow the East Entrance to stay open to snowmobiles.

Very interesting about face ... what's going on behind the scenes, and how is it that Colin Simpson already knows what's going to happen?

More as always in the Yellowstone Newspaper, linked below.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

Anonymous & Yellowstone Junkie, I personally hold Bush & Cheney accountable for a lot of the botch-up and do nothing environmental policies in this country. It's quite obvious that Clinton was a far better environmental president, and custodian of the National Parks then oil kissing Bush.This present administration continously advocates rape and pillage is a good thing for big oil, coal and utility companies. Good environmental management and ethics does not apply with this foul administration. We probably won't know the extent of the environmental damage of this great country of ours once Bush & Cheney leave office, and I wonder about all those backroom deals to exploit are natural resources for more greed and pillage. Only time will tell! The snowmobile debacle in Yellowstone is another small example of the Bush administration snorkeling in pro business policies at the expense of more pollution, and environmental damage to this wonderfu and beautiful park system. I would certainly advocate, bring in more cleaner transporting vehicles into all National Parks, and start a new era of thinking green with better energy efficiency and common sense. Yellowstone, since Bush has been in office, it's been blame Clinton for every fault that this present administration creates. This so called president, never seems to stand on his own two feet when comes screwing up, except for a war that he started and created....and will probably lose. Vote Obama in 2008!!

This is a very funny thread! It really shows the distinct dilemma that anyone (NPS or whoever else you want to put in there) faces with it's mission.

The thread begins with the initial question: "Is hiking Half Dome a wilderness experience?" No, seems the consensus. And why? Because the NPS "manages" the wilderness, thus reducing its "wild" qualities. No, it's because humans are there at all that's the problem. No, it's because the NPS caters to tourists that don't want to get out of their cars and want to be "catered" to.

But isn't the problem with climbing Half Dome exactly about those tourists who ARE getting out of their cars and doing a pretty strenous day climb in order to experience the very wilderness that's being bemoaned?

Here's how I see it (right or wrong). If we define the wilderness experience as time spent in a place without human influence, there has not been a wilderness experience in the Americas for 20,000 to 40,000 years (depending on your science). If you are talking about land that isn't somehow managed by humans but left to the influence of nature alone, we lost wilderness by first few decades of the twentieth century. Hell, the air we produce in our cities has influenced designated wilderness areas for decades, let alone the physical structures of roads and buildings.

Wilderness can only truly be defined by the way we manage the land. And it's important to realize that wilderness in, say, Alaska, is far more easily managed as wilderness (because of its remoteness, though that protection is beginning to fail as well) as, say, the California mid-Sierra where thousands and thousands of San Franciscans and Los Angelinos and Sacramentoads flock for a bit of relief in whatever is left of nature in the mountains.

I'm not sure what you expect the NPS to do? (And the question applies to anyone expected to manage it, government-affiliated or not). There's lots of complaints, but I see few suggestions.

Here's how to make Half Dome a more "wilderness" kind of experience: limit access. That is how we've traditionally maintained a wilderness experience for people and it should apply to Half Dome as well. Make them register. Limit the number of bodies per day.

What Half Dome needs, like any designated wilderness area, is a human firewall that allows only the smallest footprint possible and less of a human highway.

Uh, MR WADE...you had 8 YEARS of the Clintoon Administration to do MANY things for the parks, but you did NOTHING....

I agree with much of what has been said here. And truthfully, on a personal level, I do question many management decisions of the NPS. However, a big problem we face, more than NPS management, is the expectations of visitors . Too many people just want to see animals from their cars, tour buses, etc. rather than expending any energy and actually experiencing anything.

Our park visitors, in many cases, aren't doing anything active, and expect to be catered to. Of course, this is not what the wilderness experience is about, but how can we shift these core attitudes?

I spent this past summer conducting recreation research in Alaska, you'd be surprised at my data. It's sad how people want to see these places on TV, but rarely want to expend any energy at all on the experience.

In my opinion, this is the root of the problem.

Since homo sapiens have inhabited this hemisphere for at least the past 10,000 years, and for probably much longer, we too have to be factored in as a part of the "post-glacial" wilderness experience. I try to keep my park visits as "traditional" as possible, without breaking any modern day taboos (like hunting and gathering for instance).

For me this manifests itself in a clamber down the steep rocky banks of the Virgin River, in the shimmering heat of a summer afternoon, where I proceed to strip off my clothes and jump into the cool clear waters to soak and sooth my overheated brain. I then proceed to rub gobs of the mucky reddish clay from the shoreline all over my body and then let it dry into thin peeling patches of mud before leaping back into the river to wash it off and begin the process all over again. Ahh.....the fun of being a North American Ape-Man!

Nearby I can hear the loud insistent hum of the park shuttle bus engine whining up and down the canyon road, bursting at the seams with tourists eager to know where they can find a "scenic" trail that will only take an a hour of their time, so they can get to Bryce for the sunset and then to the North Rim before the dining room closes.

I'm an ape man, I'm an ape ape man, I'm an ape man
I'm a King Kong man, I'm a voo-doo man
I'm an ape man.
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore
And make like an ape man. --------The Kinks

A few facts for the uninformed. There are too many boats in that stretch, but until CRC is open, it is the only way to access the rest of the 100+ mile long main channel or the 2000 miles of shoreline. How many of you realize that at full pool, the shoreline of Lake Powell is longer than the entire west coast of the US, from Mexico to Canada. When CRC is open, there is only a short wakeless zone through the cut. Then boats start to disperse into the side canyons. If you look at the photo at the top of this, the cut is through the flat area just to the right of the rock tower in the center of the photo.