Yosemite Crowds
Just read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. I haven't been to Yosemite in a number of years and have not done the hike referenced in the article. The photos attached to the article seemed worth sharing. Granted, I don't mind passing fishermen on the trail or even seeing them on the stream (in the distance preferably) but my jaw dropped when I saw those crowed cables.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNI21K7367.DTL
Last edited by Fishing Jill; 07-12-2011 at 03:42 PM.
"I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening..."
Norman Maclean: A River Runs Through It
It seems the park officials are issuing 400 permits a day for a reason. Folks starting a petition to end the permits and allow any number of people to climb half dome sounds silly and dangerous to me. The fella who started the petition lives in Washington DC. I guess he's used to crowds. I wonder if he would start a petition to end issuing tickets for the Washington Monument or Lincoln Memorial and allow anyone who could squeeze in there admission regardless of the number already there?
I'll be in Yosemite next week but not to climb half dome. I'll be fishing streams. Jim
I'm either going to, coming from or thinking about fishing. Jim
Nice cable and supports ruining the beauty of the rocks. Amazing.
Good fishing technique trumps all.....wish I had it.
Just amazing.
OOOooooOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOO!! 4 people have DIED in 15 years!! We have to do something about this!
I don't care if people wanna climb or not, but that figure is a ridiculous reason to limit numbers.
As far as ruining the beauty of the natural rocks, what do you call Rushmore, Stone Mountain, Crazy Horse Memorial, or the little white stains from climber's chalk, Going-To-The-Sun Road, (Insert Name Here) Dam, etc, etc. The cables were installed in 1919! Different way of looking at things back then.
"Trust, but verify" - Russian Proverb, as used by Ronald Reagan
I hiked to the top of Half Dome on Labor Day weekend in '07. Crazy, I know, but it was a very last-minute trip where I joined some family who were already planning to go. The crowds were HORRENDOUS that weekend!!! FAR worse than these pictures show! Thankfully since my sister-in-law's husband was continuing on the John Muir Trail with some friends and got there plenty early on Thursday, we were able to get some back-country permits to camp overnight up there no too far from the base. We got up early and were able to get up to the top of the Dome before too many people had arrived on Saturday morning. Even by 11am, getting down was a real pain with all of the people climbing up already. We ended up having to decend the rock on the outside of the cables because we really couldn't make any headway otherwise. I don't recommend doing that unless absolutely necessary (which with the 400 permits a day is pretty unlikely now), because you certainly risk you life in doing so. That is one reason where I can see the permits being a good thing. Yeah, it stinks to limit the number of people who get to have "the experience", but with the crowds getting so bad it is only a matter of time before we would hear of people falling off and dying on a routine basis.
BTW. for those that don't know, the park removes these cables for the winter months and reinstalls them in the spring.
"Engineers don't idle well."
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