Recent comments

I think NPS should issue back country permits with only a limited number of people obtaining them per day. This way people could actually enjoy the peace and solitude of the climb. It would also lead to being more prepared as you would actually have to do something ahead of time in order to climb. And I know this is not popular but a nominal fee for the permit should be charged. And before a lot of people get all up in arms about that comment think about it. You already need to have enough money to buy the right kind of shoes, gloves, backpack and food to make the journy what is another $20 for a permit. If you don't have the money for the permit then you don't have it for the shoes and other things you need so you are more likely to be unprepared. Charging for the permit could give the park service the money to help cover having a ranger stationed up there during the busy season and would help to offset the cost of rescuing someone in an emergency.

I think the article talks more about stupidity than a real danger on Half Dome. Don't people prepare before they go out to a national park? My guidebook says in big letters that the hike up Half Dome 1. is VERY STRENUOUS, 2. is 17 miles round trip (compared with a mile or 2 for Mirror Lake, Lower Yosemite Falls, or even Vernal Falls, 3. should not be attempted when the cables are down or when there is even a chance of wet weather. The article mentions the possibility of day-trippers biting off more than they can chew. Why on earth would you want to do a "drive-by" of a national park, especially somewhere like Yosemite? And if you have to do that because of kids or other commitments, wouldn't you want to prepare beforehand to maximize your time and enjoyment?

"Does the Park Service have an obligation to facilitate people's sense of a thrill or rush? "

Good question. What exactly is their role when it comes to facilitating anything?

My appreciation of the shuttles goes back to the mid-80s at Grand Canyon where the Hermit's Rest route has been bus only during the peak visitation periods for a long time now. Riding my bike along the 7-mile route was much more enjoyable with only the occasional slow-moving bus to worry about. You never had the situation where full parking lots encouraged stressed out people to park illegally along the shoulder of the road because they felt "entitled" to a parking space. I also never had to worry about locking my bike because there were only bus riders coming and going. What I didn't like was that the commercial tour buses were also allowed to use the Hermit route, and with them, a complete busload would disembark at each stop and swamp the viewpoint with scores of chatty shutterbugs while the bus sat waiting with the engine running, adding a steady supply of diesel fumes and engine rumble to the park experience. At least with the shuttle, you rarely had so many people unloading at once and if they did, the bus left right away.

More recently our family did the train ride up from Williams and once we got to the park, because of the complete coverage of the South Rim bus system, we could go anywhere we wanted with no car. Nice.

-- Jon Merryman

Jim (and everyone), don't some of the parks have those fat-tire wheelchairs available for people to get a little off the boardwalks every once in a while? My remembrance of Yellowstone was that the boardwalk trailed areas were enough to keep most people busy, interested, and fascinated, but if you wanted to roam elsewhere, contact the visitor center(s) or the West Park Medical Services and see what they've got. If they have any at all it won't be many, and you'll want to reserve in advance if they allow you to.

Here's a great NPS link that will give you official park info on accessibility:
http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkwide-access.htm

Have fun! I'll be there in late August with my son.

-- Jon Merryman

That's a fantastic question. Off the top of my head, Yellowstone is a huge park, and so you'll be in your car so much of the time. In the geyser areas, there are very accessible boardwalks, which are perfect for wheelchairs, especially in the Old Faithful area. In some areas, however, I think that they won't be as accessible - for instance in Mammoth Hot Springs, which is more vertical and at the Mud Volcano area. At Mammoth, there's a lot, though that can be seen without climbing all the boardwalks.

In the Canyon area, most of the approaches unfortunately have staircases of one kind or another. I'm wracking my brain for an overlook that doesn't involve some kind of stairs. There's also construction in the area.

There are a lot of pullouts to stop and see scenery.

As far as hotels, if that's where you are staying, I'm not sure. You should talk with the people you made reservations with. They also control many of the restaurants and can talk with you about that.

Obviously, backcountry hiking is pretty much out of the question. There are no paved trails in backcountry. The closest you can get are the Lone Star geyser trail, which is mostly an old road (bikes are allowed on this trail) and along the old fountain flats drive, but I wouldn't recommend either. However, Yellowstone is definitely big enough to enjoy in a wheelchair, even if it's so big and so complicated that it's a sad truth that a person in a wheelchair won't be able to go up a mountain (though the Beartooth Highway just outside of Yellowstone's Northeast Entrance can allow for the same experience), won't be able to hike out to backcountry lakes and thermals, and in some cases won't be able to get close to some otherwise accessible features. However, there are still plenty of amazing spots, whether it's the overlooks of Yellowstone Lake, the geyser fields near Old Faithful, or viewing wildlife in the Lamar Valley. I'm going to try and take some time to look at this a little more and report a little more information.

I've thought about this some; I think even a blind person could enjoy Yellowstone if only because the sounds, textures, and smells are so unique. Some hate the sulfur smells, but I think they are wondrous and unusual. I get nostalgic for those smells in my sleep. It's a feast of at least four of the five senses (I can't say I ate that well there), and I hope you'll have a great trip and that your child will love this magical place.

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

Anyone care to give tips on travelling to Yellowstone with a child in a wheelchair? This is our first trip there. I would greatly appreciate any tips on how to make this more enjoyable for the whole family. My son is 6. TY

hi gary- aside from respectfully suggesting you might want to check your tone (see the last paragraph in your comment, re-read and please reconsider...) i would also like to suggest that you might actually want to investigate the cash (at least the national forest reservation system) extortion fees charged (minimum night stays, reservation fees, etc.) by the concessionaires and then possibly consider writing your congressional team (skip the nps/usfs folks) and direct your passion in that direction. it's the government, not the commenters on this site, degrading the overall values in our cherished national park system by allowing the "concessionaires" to "profit" by running the reservation systems...

I'm a bit astonished at some of the reactions. This being a National Parks site, I thought there would be folks here who have an appreciation that we even have such resources. Instead, I see greed and capitalism-at-all-costs professed as "how it should be". What are you guys doing here, anyway, looking for some way to profit from the national park and forest system? I'm glad you weren't around when they were established, we'd have a bunch of McDonald's and Holiday Inns instead of a national heritage.

Sure, call in and buy up the campsites that you know will be in demand, because it is summer and that's the only time some folks can get off work to go there. Then sell it to the richest SOB you can find, boy, yeah, that's America in action! Get yours, to heck with everybody else, right? Even though you added absolutely nothing of value to what you're selling, call in early and get what you can, then gouge what you can out of some poor working guy who couldn't get through on the phone for his reservation because you and the other profiteers had the lines jammed up. Now THAT's putting our national parks to good use in the good old American way...for your personal profit, yup boy.

And what's this about a can of worms being opened by making the reservations non-transferable? You make your reservations; if you can't go, you call and they refund all but $10 of your money, big deal, what's so difficult about that? So you can't give them to your buddy, if he wants to go then go with him, or have him call and make his own reservations. If that's a "problem", I'd hate to see what happens when actual real problems come up.

I'm glad that this forum doesn't represent the norm, at least out in our part of the west. Many of us here consider Yosemite a national treasure, and are grateful that folks had the foresight (and the fortitude to battle greedy capitalists who saw only dollars, sound familiar?) to at least try to preserve it for future generations.

That's right, encourage profiteering from anything you can find; grab up those campsites and auction them off. Then we'll see a bunch of spoiled yuppies in their rented motorhomes filling up what used to be a nice place, no doubt traipsing through everyone else's camp, leaving out their food for the bears, and working at their laptops while the kids watch DVD's from their campsite, so they can keep up with their ebay sales and investments.

Some of you don't deserve to have national parks; you deserve what would be the product of your dream, a bunch of paved strip malls where people can do what's really important, make money.

I enjoy the shutter service. Leaving the car behind, and letting someone else drive is fine with me. At the Grand Canyon it just makes since; there would be too many cars on too few roads; and you certainly don't want to add another lane. And besides there's nothing worse than a hot and tired Dad trying to find the correct turn with a car load a kids and a "feed-up" wife!
Also having the shuttle take and pick you up at the trail head is a plus.

I am curious why your first assumption is that the reservation was sold to some "rich guy"? It may very well have been sold to a group of Tibetan monks or bought by a church charity to be given to a poor family from the projects or maybe even to a downtrodden Native American from Pine Ridge, SD.

"Now, the rich have access, and those who have a special skill for snapping up campsites have a business." Well maybe. I've made a lot of money on eBay selling things I've bought at yard sales from people who could've probably used the extra money. What should I have done? Passed up the opportunity because I knew I'd be haunted by the dictum: "There is never an end to the story of even the smallest action we take in life."

You know, your world view can get to be a bit paralyzing.

Real life requires real actions.

0r as Prince Hamlet once said "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Bottom line, if someone wants to pay for a campsite reservation that another person obtained legally, well then, that is just fine with me. Both parties are happy, end of story.