Yosemite Blog » NPS Officials Want to Cut Down Trees so Tourists Can See Better

Yosemite Blog » NPS Officials Want to Cut Down Trees so Tourists Can See Better:


The National Park Service has released their plan for overhauling the Tunnel View Overlook, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the park, but some of the ideas presented may not be that popular with locals including removing trees so visitors can see better.

This is, of course, silly. This “it has to always be the way I remember it always has been” concept ought to be dead by now. The only true constant in a natural setting is change; in fact, the reason the trees need to be removed is because they’ve grown…

This “don’t touch it” idea is what led to the idea we had to strongly fight forest fires and prevent “damage” — which led to the overgrowth problems and massive fuel loads that today are part of the problem of the massive forest fires we have today. Fortunately, we now better understand the life cycle of a forest, and generally work more compatibly with it.

And I’m old enough to remember when they used to DREDGE Mirror Lake, in the name of “keeping it natural”, and added sluice gates and the like to keep it from silting. Think about that phrase a bit, about having to bring in heavy machinery and doing major reconstruction, all in the name of keeping it as nature intended.

There are bigger issues in Yosemite than a few trees that are blocking the view at a place built to allow people to look at the views.

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