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Sierra Club, mountaineers oppose plan to build lodge near hallowed Yosemite site
By Glen Martin
San Francisco Chronicle - October 12, 1998
To one side, it's holy ground, invested with sacred and historic significance.
To the other, it's simply a convenient place to stick a building.
It sounds like a battle over an ancient Native American burial ground. Instead,
rock climbers and the National Park Service are scrapping over a nondescript
campground in Yosemite Valley.
To hear the climbers tell it, the National Park Service's plan to build a
large lodge on the northern side of Yosemite Valley will desecrate the climbing
community's equivalent of the Sistine Chapel.
In other words, it will wreck Camp Four -- a Yosemite camping site that, although
somewhat shabby, is the climbing world's single most famous destination.
The Park Service, on the other hand, cannot see what all the fuss is about.
They do not plan to obliterate Camp Four, they say. All they want to do is
build a 40-foot-tall building next to it that will house about 335 people.
Most of those lodged will be overnight visitors to Yosemite National Park,
but employees of the park's concessionaire may be accommodated as well.
The climbers and the Sierra Club have both filed suits against the Park Service,
contending that the plan violates the National Environmental Protection Act
and the park's General Management Plan, a document that calls for reducing
the development "footprint" in the valley.
The climbers, convinced that the lodge will despoil the campground east of
the foot of El Capitan, are also pushing to have the area declared a national
historic site.
They point out that modern rock climbing was born in the funky camp, midwifed
by such pioneers as John Salathe, Royal Robbins, Al Steck and Yvon Chouinard.
They were heartened recently when they were notified by the U.S. Department
of the Interior that the camp qualifies for such a designation.
Many of the modern climbing techniques and equipment now in widespread use
were first conceived during Camp Four fireside brainstorming sessions.
Even today, climbers who are visiting Yosemite Valley for the first time approach
Camp Four with profound reverence.
"This is hallowed ground," said Jay Miller, a climber from Seekonk, Mass.,
who recently stayed at the camp.
"No matter where you go in the world, every climber you meet knows about Camp
Four and dreams of coming here," said Miller, gazing at the imposing granite
walls that loomed above him. "You feel the ghosts of all the great pioneering
climbers in this camp. You walk in here with your haul bag and it's like --
I'm there!"
The Park Service, however, does not share such a mystic vision. In fact, it
is not Camp Four to them. They have called it Sunnyside Camp since 1971, when
they changed the nomenclature of the valley's campgrounds from numbers to
names.
You can tell a lot about a Yosemite visitor depending on what he or she calls
the camp. Park Service employees and Yosemite newcomers call it Sunnyside;
climbers and valley old-timers insist on referring to it as Camp Four.
But the Park Service is not out to upset climbers, insists Scott Gediman,
spokesman for Yosemite National Park. Rather, he says, the service is simply
trying to carry out portions of the General Management Plan.
"After the 1997 floods, we released the Valley Implementation Plan, which
looked at ways to address the GMP in a practical fashion," Gediman said. "(It
seemed logical) to do it in chunks instead of trying to implement the whole
GMP at once, which would have been overwhelming."
Gediman points out that the proposed project would be built adjacent to Camp
Four, not in it. But climbers say the site -- an area known as Swan Slab --
contains large boulders that climbers use when practicing their moves. They
also say the proximity of the proposed building would greatly reduce the tranquility
of the camp.
Gediman said a critical housing shortage in the valley necessitates the project,
noting that floods wiped out 40 percent of the available rooms at Yosemite
Lodge, where most noncampers visiting the valley stay.
"Given that loss, we felt rebuilding the lodge as quickly as possible should
be a priority," he said. "That would allow between 12,000 and 15,000 visitors
a month to stay overnight in the valley."
Jim McCarthy, a past president of the American Alpine Club, the country's
foremost climbing group, said the Park Service's recent moves have flummoxed
Yosemite preservationists.
"I think they may have seized on the flood to give Delaware North (the mother
company of Yosemite Concessions Services Corp., which runs the park's concessions)
the rooms they wanted and a chance to have their employees housed right in
the heart of the valley," he said.
The Park Service, McCarthy said, "is in profound conflict of interest on this
-- they get 16 percent of all receipts from concessionaire operations, so
they're acting as business partners, not stewards and managers."
Gediman said the amount of money the Park Service gets from the concessionaire
is irrelevant.
"The return to the Park Service was figured several years ago when the contract
was signed," said Gediman, "and it really doesn't have a bearing on this issue.
What is relevant is that the concessionaire signed the contract assuming that
a certain number of rooms would be available -- rooms that no longer exist
because of the flood. If we don't provide those rooms in a timely fashion,
we could be sued."
Virginia Chaves of Yosemite Concessions Services said the company is "very
disappointed that it has come to this. We're in a delicate situation -- we
are not directly involved in (the litigation), but we hope it can be resolved
soon so we can all move forward."
Yet the explanations have done little to mollify the climbers -- or the Sierra
Club, whose suit against the Park Service also addresses other issues concerning
the project.
"Our objections are somewhat broader than the climbers' objections," said
Joyce Eden of the Sierra Club's Yosemite committee.
The club has asked for a preliminary injunction in federal court to prevent
the Park Service from engaging in trenching and other preparatory work for
the project. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer recently toured the disputed
site and is expected to issue a decision in San Francisco shortly.
Eden said the Park Service acted illegally by approving the lodge plan after
conducting a federal environmental assessment, which is less rigorous than
an environmental impact statement.
"The National Environmental Protection Act requires a full EIS for a project
of this scope," she said. "The entire Yosemite lodge project violates the
Park Service's own General Management Plan. The implementation plan was done
in a rushed, piecemeal fashion. We need a comprehensive implementation plan
that addresses the valley as a whole -- lodging, transportation, employee
housing."
The club also objects to the service's ancillary construction plans for the
lodge area, such as a large parking lot and the reconfiguration of a road.
"The Merced River is a federally designated wild and scenic river, and the
service wants to move Northside Drive so it goes right into the riparian zone,"
said Joe Brecher, an East Bay attorney who is representing the Sierra Club.
Brecher said any river given the "wild and scenic" designation "is supposed
to be just that -- wild, scenic and undeveloped. It isn't supposed to have
new roads and buildings constructed next to it."
Gediman said he could not speak about any application of the Wild and Scenic
Rivers Act "because it's one of the major issues of the litigation."
Brecher insists that the Park Service is playing fast and loose with both
the General Management Plan and the future of Yosemite.
"Enough's enough," he said. "The Park Service hands out this populist line,
that it's concerned about mom and pop visiting the valley and not having a
place to stay. But those rooms will cost $160 a night, and (the Park Service)
isn't trying to replace any of the (cheap) campsites that were lost in the
1997 flood. It's disgraceful--nature gave them the opportunity to get development
out of the valley, but they're refusing to take it.''
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