Backcountry Yosemite - includes related articles on Yosemite National Park

Sunset, May, 1990

Still mostly wild and uncrowded . . . ready for exploring as the grand old park celebrates its centennial

Of all the grand plans ever conceived around a campfire, one of the grandest was born in the High Sierra just over a century ago. Pioneer environmentalist John Muir and magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson had spent several days in the summer of 1889 exploring the forest-fringed meadows and snow-filled rivers of the country above Yosemite Valley. At night, back in their Tuolumne Meadows campsite, their talk turned to the ravages that decades of grazing sheep ("hoofed locusts," Muir called them) had inflicted on the once-lush mountain meadows. After contrasting Muir's glowing descriptions of the meadows' former splendor with what they saw on their walks, Johnson came up with a scheme to protect the high meadows, and the headwaters of the streams that tumbled into Yosemite Valley (the valley itself already enjoyed protection as a park--granted to the state of California by President Lincoln in 1864). Johnson proposed that he and Muir join forces to promote the creation of a much larger national park, Muir to write articles extolling the virtues of the area and Johnson to publish them in his Century magazine. The plan succeeded. On October 1, 1890, President Harrison signed into law a bill creating Yosemite National Park, using Muir's recommended boundaries.

In historical perspective: a century of ups and downs The 100th anniversary of this act seems a fitting occasion to look ahead with serious concerns for the park's future--but also to take a fresh look at the still-wild Yosemite backcountry. Although there have been some significant changes, the backcountry still offers many of the same glorious experiences that inspired Johnson and Muir to work to protect it in perpetuity.

Sampling the backcountry . . . five areas in Yosemite's spectacular midsection

In 1905, the boundaries of the national park were redrawn; new ground on the north boundary of the Tuolumne River watershed was gained, but the magnificent wilderness around the Ritter Range was lost. A year later, poorly managed Yosemite Valley reverted to federal control and was incorporated into the park. In more than one sense, 1913 was a watershed for the park. After years of controversy, Congress okayed construction of a dam on the Tuolumne River (well within park boundaries) that would flood Muir's beloved Hetch Hetchy Valley. This was a bitter loss for conservationists, but it galvanized their fledging movement--and led to the passage, three years later, of the National Park Service Act. It wasn't until six years ago that Muir's vision of a place preserved in its natural state and protected from harmful exploitation was finally realized. In 1984, almost 95 percent of the park was officially declared wilderness, making it off limits to further road-building or any other new form of development.

A Sierra showcase: Yosemite has it all Crown jewel in the center of the Sierra Nevada chain (the longest continuous mountain range in the country), Yosemite National Park lies halfway between the range's northern end near Lassen and its southern terminus at Tehachapi Pass. Within it are represented all of the major Sierra Nevada ecosystems, from foothill woodlands to alpine tundra. Yosemite Valley, with its monumental granite walls and high-diving waterfalls, has always drawn the vast majority of park visitors--though it constitutes less than 1 percent of the park's 1,190 square miles. Last year, at least 70 percent of the nearly 3 1/2 million people who entered the park ended up there. The result of such dense visitation? Traffic and congestion problems not unlike those usually associated with an urban area. (For more on these problems, see page 114.) In the early 1970s, it seemed that the backcountry might soon be overrun with visitors, too. Backpacking was rapidly gaining in popularity, and hundreds of backpackers sometimes competed for campsites around a single lake. This stampede to the wilderness eroded trails, trampled vegetation, and polluted streams. To reduce impact on the most popular destinations, a system was instituted to control access through permits. But in 1975, the backpacking boom peaked. Since then, overnight use of the backcountry has dropped by half, though park visitation has increased by almost a third. Yosemite's wilderness is still more heavily used than most others in California, and permits are still required for overnight wilderness trips. But a visitor repelled by the crowds there years ago would be pleasantly surprised today. In the following pages, we help you get to know a representative--and spectacular--swath of the backcountry. Traversed by the Tioga Road, which is peppered with trailheads, this central third of the park is uniquely accessible cross-section of the High Sierra. Even just driving through, you can learn a good deal about the natural history of these mountains from roadside exhibits. Of course, you'll learn a lot more if you explore the park on foot--whether with a day's walk or by backpacking for a night or more--as Muir and Johnson did a century ago.