Year in Preview: 2018

In 2018, we’re celebrating our 95th anniversary of partnership with Yosemite National Park — nearly a century ago, our organization got its start as the Yosemite Museum Association, the first cooperating association in the National Park Service.

Thanks to generous support from people who love the park, we’ve been able to provide $119 million in grants Yosemite to fund more than 600 completed projects. That legacy is embedded in repairs on classic hiking trails, ecosystems flourishing after restoration work, and rare species rebounding in their native habitats.

This year, we’re continuing our decades-long philanthropic partnership by making 36 new grants to Yosemite. We often say you can see evidence of our donors’ support throughout Yosemite … and we mean it! Here’s a quick look at places you’ll see gifts at work in the park in 2018.

Several 2018 grants — including one for a pilot bike-share program — focus on ensuring that visitors can experience popular spots like Yosemite Valley in an enjoyable, environmentally sustainable way. Photo: Yosemite Conservancy/Keith Walklet

YOSEMITE VALLEY covers just under 6 of the park’s 1,169 square miles, but holds many of its most recognizable wonders — and attracts most of its visitors. Heading to the Valley for a quick trip? A ranger might invite you to help out with a GPS-based visitor use study. Camping out? Take advantage of a pilot bike-share program, an easy, green option for quick jaunts to catch a theater show, pick up supplies, and more.

At the western end of the Valley, turn your attention toward 3,000-foot El Capitan and its namesake meadow, where Climber Stewards staff the Ask a Climber station between May and October. At the eastern end, keep an eye out for crews restoring wetland habitat near Royal Arches.

Elsewhere, you might spot people using handcycles or adaptive climbing equipment to explore the Valley with No Limits Yosemite, or come across rangers riding trained mustangs, the newest equine members of the park’s long-running mounted patrol program.

Save some time to step inside the Yosemite Museum — the first structure built to serve as a museum in the National Park System. While you probably won’t see them, curators and interns are hard at work behind the scenes, making historical resources more accessible by digitizing thousands of images and creating a Google Cultural Institute exhibit.

Against the backdrop of glittering lakes and granite, Yosemite’s Tuolumne Search and Rescue team provides a critical service in the high country. A 2018 project will renovate the team’s base camp and provide improved housing for the talented crew. Photo: NPS

While the Valley forms a slim fragment of the park, Yosemite’s HIGH COUNTRY covers a vast area — hundreds of square miles, most of them in the remote wilderness, strewn with cool lakes, lush meadows and rugged peaks. Head to Tenaya Lake, where a looped trail is emerging along the shoreline, thanks to a multiphase restoration project. After some time on the beach, continue east on Tioga Road to Tuolumne Meadows Campground, where new canvas tents will provide improved housing for the Search and Rescue team that supports high-country emergency operations.

If you hit the trail in almost any direction, you’re bound to pass through a high country meadow. Pause your hike to search for the study subjects of two of our 2018 grants: alpine butterflies and songbirds. If you’re really lucky, you might spot scientists in action, too!

For a closer look at a reddish lustrous copper or a bright blue lazuli bunting, break out your binoculars, rather than trampling through wetlands. And to expand your understanding of Yosemite’s winged inhabitants even further, join us for a guided adventure, or mark your calendar for Yosemite’s annual summer butterfly count.

On many high country hikes, you’re also likely to see evidence of trail work: stone steps and walls, drainage structures, rubbly rip rap skillfully placed to prevent erosion. If you take a summer trek south to Chain Lakes and Merced Pass, look for California Conservation Corps members (all in their late teens and early twenties) honing skills and repairing trails. Follow the John Muir Trail through Lyell Canyon, where you might happen upon trail and habitat teams building on several seasons of hard work to shift the JMT to drier ground and restore health to a trodden wetland.

If you’re up for a longer expedition (or want to join one of our guided backpacking trips) follow the Tuolumne River’s Lyell Fork through the canyon to its headwaters at Mounts Lyell and Maclure, where scientists are studying glacier loss and water resources.

The Pioneer Yosemite History Center in Wawona is home to cabins and other structures representing chapters of Yosemite’s past. Stop by to see previously restored buildings, and then check out the 2018 trail projects underway nearby. Photo: Ron Reeg

In Yosemite’s southwest corner, the WAWONA area welcomes people entering the park from Highway 41. Its most famous feature, the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, is scheduled to reopen in 2018 after several years of major donor-supported restoration work.

If you’re planning to go see the massive trees in their newly restored home, look for the in-progress Washburn Trail, a new pedestrian link between the grove and the South Entrance. For a portion of its path, the trail follows remnants of a stagecoach road built in 1879.

Nearby, crews will also be making improvements to the trail connecting the Wawona Visitor Center (located in the historic Thomas Hill studio) and the Pioneer Yosemite History Center. Be sure to spend some time at both ends of the trail — in past years, donor gifts have helped the park restore the studio’s floors and fountain; preserve 19th century cabins; and purchase a new replica of a historic stagecoach.

Help give wildlife a brake: Drive slowly on park roads and stay alert for bears and other animals. Photo: Courtesy of NPS.

No matter where you go in Yosemite — from the Valley to Wawona to the high country — you’ll be able to see donors’ gifts at work. Watch for (and heed!) new speed feedback signs designed to protect wildlife by prompting drivers to slow down on park roads. If you board a hiker shuttle, listen for recorded safety tips from the Preventive Search and Rescue team. Download the new Yosemite app when it launches, and use it to plan an itinerary, find art classes or ranger talks, and more. (The high-tech grants don’t stop with your smartphone: Park experts are using cutting-edge tools to create 3-D maps of natural and human-made features.)

Look for: undergraduate Yosemite Leadership Program summer interns mentoring younger students and sharing their love of the park. Photo: NPS/Jesse Chakrin

Throughout and beyond Yosemite, your gifts will create year-round opportunities for thousands of kids and young adults to get outside, experience wilderness, and play a part in preserving their public lands. By supporting Youth in Yosemite Programs such as Junior Rangers, Adventure Risk Challenge, WildLink, Parks in Focus and the Yosemite Leadership Program, donors help inspire future park visitors, stewards and leaders to feel at home in the natural world and understand the importance of protecting places like Yosemite.

As we embark on another year of partnership with Yosemite, we’re grateful to our donors for making a tangible, lasting difference in the park, year after year. Here on the blog, we’re looking forward to sharing updates from the year ahead, as well as highlights from our long history of inspiring people to help preserve the park. We hope our stories help you forge an even deeper connection with Yosemite — and motivate you to play a part in supporting this special place.

And with that, time to dive in. Happy New Year!