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Opening Remarks by John Middendorf during the panel discussion, The Future of our National Parks and Public Lands.

1997 American Alpine Club meeting, Dec 6, 1997

 

Hello, my name is John Middendorf, and today I represent the organization The Friends of Yosemite Valley. The Friends of Yosemite Valley was formed this last summer by a group of climbers concerned with the ability of climbers to pursue their craft in Yosemite Valley.

 

Access to climbing all over the country is currently being threatened. Public land managers are proposing banning fixed anchors which would essentially close climbing in many areas. Even in areas with no fixed anchors, such as the Overlook in a National Forest near Flagstaff, Arizona, climbing has been restricted because officials were concerned with the safety of another user group, tourists, whom they feared would fall off the edge trying to look at the vertical crawlers, even though this has never happened.

 

In Yosemite, the living and camping arrangements for climbers is being seriously altered by the current plan to develop the Yosemite Lodge area. The multi-story employee dorms planned to be built in the east end of Camp 4 is a travesty. The expansion of living quarters for employees of the concession, Delaware North, clearly defines the future of Yosemite: more infrastructure for the concession, and more service units to serve that infrastructure. The approved Lodge plan clearly shows an expansion of lodging, despite the misleading statement regarding a reduction in the number of rooms, due to the increase in SIZE of each room. Instead of rustic cabins which have no foundation and no plumbing, larger multi-story lodging is being planned. The entire area east of Camp 4 to Swan Slab, now a beautiful wooded area with excellent bouldering, is planned for parking lots and hotel units.

 

The development of the Lodge area will take place this winter. The Lodge plan is not part of the Valley Implementation Plan. It is a development plan which was rushed through and "approved" earlier this year with very little public input. Only 197 comments were received, most of which were from climbers. We find its absence from the VIP very conspicuous, since it is an area that will see some of the most development in the Park. We feel its shows the intended direction of the Park: increased infrastructure and continued subterfuge about the facts.

 

The DCP (the document that "approved" the Lodge Plan) indicates that Camp 4, the only walk-in campground, is to be closed during the construction. I have been told by a Park Service official (Gary Colliver) that the future reservations will NEED to be made by telephone and credit card. We feel that these factors, along with the planned reduction of Camp 4, that climbers as a user group are clearly not being considered. This is wrong, and the future and the ability of climbers to climb in Yosemite, is in danger.

 

END OF PANEL INTRO

____________________

 

A question and answer period followed the opening statements. Jerry Mitchell, the NPS official in charge of GNP implementation, responded to the question of trees to the effect that they had planned to cut those not considered of value and try to save those with value. The following question was how they determined the value of each species, which was answered incompletely. Jerry Mitchell also admitted that the National Park Service was catching flak for the absence of the Lodge plan in the VIP. When asked why the Park Service gave the concession contract in 1992 to Delaware North, a gambling and resort firm based in Atlantic City, rather than to The Yosemite Restoration Trust, who had a much more environmental friendly plan, he responded that he wasn't working for the park at the time, but he believed it was because Delaware North had a better proposal. It made me wonder what that could have been, since they have been proposing more infrastructure within the park heavily since they began their tenure.

 

After Jerry had answered another question to which his response included a comment about limitations due to cost, I made the comment that I thought it was a shame that when I hear about these great proposals which are impossible due to cost, and I said I regretted that the NPS had choose to spend much of the $178 million dollars appropriated by Congress after the flood on rebuilding the concessionaire's facilities, rather than the other more timely projects, like a light rail system.

 

I hope everyone who has a desire for more walk-in campgrounds and less hotels will get involved in contacting the Yosemite National Park Service and the Department of the Interior.