Thundering Glory

Park Service dedicates $13.5m renovation at Yosemite Falls.

by Mark Grossi
Fresno Bee - April 19, 2005

Yosemite Falls stole the show Monday, roaring continuously in the distance behind Superintendent Michael Tollefson as he reminded people of the big changes around this premier outdoor attraction.

"Two years ago, there would have been 40 buses idling behind you," the top Yosemite National Park official told a crowd of 400 gathered at the falls.

Now, there are picnic tables instead of buses. And the major noise maker is the 2,425-foot falls, the tallest in North America. It seemed primed for the occasion on Monday.

The National Park Service and the nonprofit Yosemite Fund dedicated a $13.5 million renovation of the trails, bridges, boardwalks and restrooms at the falls. Most of the money — $12 million — came from the Yosemite Fund.

Officials don't keep statistics, but they estimate about 1.5 million of Yosemite's 3.5 million annual visitors see the falls, which are a dominant Yosemite Valley feature in spring.

With a thick snowpack beginning to send torrents of snowmelt down Yosemite Creek, the falls are spewing a spectacular plume along the 1,430-foot Upper Fall section. The falls haven't peaked yet, but this was still quite a show.

"This morning, we walked up to the base and saw a beautiful rainbow coming off the mist," said Fran P. Mainella, National Park Service director, who attended the dedication.

Mainella and Tollefson joined Yosemite Fund officials at the podium, congratulating all hands for raising money and completing the job after 10 years of work.

Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, who designed the work on the 52-acre area, also attended. Halprin designed the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C., and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.

The design includes a boardwalk and bridges over braided streams of Yosemite Creek on the floor of Yosemite Valley. Crews widened and smoothed out the existing trail, which is a one-mile loop, and made the east approach accessible to those in wheelchairs.

Critics have said the $800,000 restrooms and the $250,000 shuttle bus stop were too large. They also said the project required cutting down large, old trees and installing more asphalt and construction materials.

But nobody staged any obvious protest on Monday.

Instead, a lot of visitors, such as Joe Campbell of North Dakota, watched and applauded.

"This is beautiful," he said. "It's the first time I've seen these falls."

After the speeches, the crowd moved leisurely up the west side of the trail, snapping pictures of friends and relatives with the falls as a backdrop. Halprin's design offers many wide spots where people can pause on the walk.

That was something the Yosemite Fund wanted, officials said. Fund Chairman Bill Floyd said people wanted more accessibility to the falls.

"The number of visitors had increased, and there had been haphazard growth in the area to handle the visitors," Floyd said.

He said 14,000 people contributed to the falls project, which hit snags and delays related to lawsuits and other issues over the last 10 years. But the project has been completed, and there is a new emphasis on walking to the falls.

Now, the buses stop on Northside Drive near the east trail, not right in front of the picturesque west trail. And people don't stand in lines at small, primitive restrooms. The new restrooms are large enough to handle a much bigger crowd.

Park Service Director Mainella said the public-private cooperation was a model for other national parks to follow. Even though 90% of the money came from a private source, Mainella said, it was not a signal that the Bush administration would pull back support.

"This project at the falls is beyond the core mission of the National Park Service," she said. "But we are funding the less glamorous waste-water treatment projects. We are committed to the national parks."