Posted by David Senesac on October 24, 2008 at 1:58 PM
A few years ago I began posting argumentation on a local valley board about the need to remove trees being in the way at some of their famous pull out viewpoints and particularly Valley View and Tunnel View. At some point after public input, as part of a reconstruction project for that most famous Tunnel View parking area pullout, they decided to remove a number of growing trees that were increasingly blocking the views. Such did not make a number of people happy that vented knee jerk reactions, however logical minds prevailed.
Sometime last year without any public input, they whacked off all the fast growing alders that had grown up since the reconstruction after the 1997 flood in front of the Valley View viewpoint. That of course brought out more complaints but the deed was done. Now the Tunnel View project is complete and was just dedicated. Here's a story on that with our brand new view that photographers will certainly show a thumbs up for. Be sure to take a look at the following image of what it had looked like via NEXT>
David: since you're a big supporter of the killing of trees for viewshed restoration (which I did not realize was part of the NPS's mission or right), how do you feel about the Park killing trees in Tuolumne Meadows, as they have been for a while now (also in the name of viewshed restoration)?
Geological and biological processes will happen with or without our involvement, and IMO the NPS has no business playing god for reasons of commerce.
Posted by Phillip Noll on October 24, 2008 at 4:05 PM
Wow! That's quite a difference. Last time I was there I used the branches of the trees they cut down to frame my photographs and its sad to see them gone.
However, having said that, viewpoints serve a purpose and allow many people to enjoy the beauty of a grand vista who would otherwise not be able to (people with disabilities for example...or people who do not have the time or inclination to hit the trails). IMO, removing a few trees from a dedicated viewpoint along a major highway through the park is not that big a deal. One could just as easily argue that building a trail or a small bridge over a creek in the back country would be just as damaging as removing a few trees from a viewpoint. Where do you draw the line?
Managing the parks for the enjoyment and benefit of all has got to be a daunting task and there is no doubt that various actions (just like this one) will please some while angering others. (The same could be said of just about any issue or cause.) Considering that the NPS has to deal with 3.4 million visitors annually (at Yosemite alone!) with dwindling resources, compromises have to be made. I'm sure many decisions are based on which option will provide the greatest benefit for the most visitors with the smallest environmental impacts while expending the least amount of resources. Not an easy thing to juggle.
My $0.02
Posted by David Bostedo on October 24, 2008 at 4:38 PM
Geological and biological processes will happen with or without our involvement, and IMO the NPS has no business playing god for reasons of commerce.
Does this mean that you think the roads and viewing spots themselves should be allowed to dissappear as biological processes take over? Just curious...
I certainly get your point, David, but we're talking apples and oranges here.
The roads and vista pullouts were manufactured by and are maintained by man. Unless we're pulling all signs of human life out of the Valley, maintenance of at least the roads is obviously necessary. The trees are not manufactured or planted by man. Keep in mind that the view of the valley was as predictably amazing as ever, just obscured in part by a few trees and thereby impeding the picture-perfect postcard view.
Since when has it been the NPS mission to make sure everyone goes home with the picture perfect snapshot of the Valley?
I accept that Yosemite Valley is a very altered landscape at the hand of man, but a line needs to be drawn someplace. Although it is virtually managed as one, an amusement park it is not.
Posted by Steve Foss on October 24, 2008 at 5:02 PM
I take it in the same spirit as the hardened trails they're putting in most parks. Pure people management. Pure and simple.
It had come to the point in Yosemite's popular photo spots that people were spreading out off the regular access points in search of unobscured views along with a little elbowroom away from the crowds. Tunnel View had reached the point that about a 5' stretch of the rockwall provided a clear view. Lots of new "trails" were growing below the turnout and uphill, and meanwhile the lot, road and crossing were becoming traffic hazards due to oblivious people. I don't see any difference between a few trees or alders and the cryptobiotic crust and plants in Arches lost to the hardened trails there. Or are we now placing value judgements on which plants are okay to destroy and which aren't? I could give a rip about a few of Yosemite's alders and pines in exchange for better people management to control the spread of incidental damage.
Posted by David Senesac on October 25, 2008 at 12:20 AM
Michael >>>"David: since you're a big supporter of the killing of trees for viewshed restoration (which I did not realize was part of the NPS's mission or right), how do you feel about the Park killing trees in Tuolumne Meadows, as they have been for a while now (also in the name of viewshed restoration)? Geological and biological processes will happen with or without our involvement, and IMO the NPS has no business playing god for reasons of commerce."
It sounds like you are trying to pose the issue in terms of a slippery slope argument. Lets see if I can wing a bit of logic here.
Such was posed on the mentioned board at length and was not difficult to rebut. The usual argument along those lines was started by someone making an angry list of various outrageous ways the park service might arbitrarily cut down or remove view impediments from a list of situations. Of course most were outrageous examples in order to indicate actions any would find revolting and emphasize how opening that door seemed to necessarily mean there was hardly a limit to what might follow. In my opinion those doing so didn't spend much time considering how the situation was not so black and white. How the park takes this kind of action in a long list of ways maintaining and building considered park infrastructure as needed. The difference is here some immediately have a reaction condemning such a notion maybe because it is merely "the view" that is involved as though that is something that might not be considered. Even if such is inside the area of infrastructure.
My basic strategy in arguing on the board was to differentiate special highly modified public viewpoints from all the other possibilities and that considerate minds in park management ought to be able to easily make reasoned pragmatic decisions. In the viewpoints mentioned, they are among the most popular at the park, with a target that includes the full range of possible visitors. Locations that have always been paved parking lots with fascilities that no doubt a few hundred years ago would have likely been forest just as is currently adjacent. Considering such, the mandate of the park ought to be to manage such unnatural structured viewpoints within its local confines with the best interest of providing the public its intended purpose. Accordingly vegetation as in trees etc that grow within its unnatural confines are subject to considered removal.
From Valley View along the North Loop Road beside the Merced River, there is a huge ugly incence cedar log that been stuck up on shallow rocks right in front of the viewpoint since the last major El Nino winter. I would be with those who would be on the side of letting things in the river remain as they are. Its out beyond the concrete reinforced bank unlike the mentioned alders. Likewise since early in the last century, tall pines trees across the river in Bridalveil Meadow have grown up to such a height, that the Bridalveil Falls barely pokes out above the top of those trees. Should someone thus cut those pines down so visitors might have a similar view to those decades ago when the area was mostly lower black oaks? Of course not.
Now as to the Tuolumne Meadows lodgepole pine cutting, I would agree that is further down the slippery slope and more controversial to argue against. In this case unlike the other two, I suspect that view has nothing to do with photographers but rather probably opening up the tourist views from the much developed areas of store and gas station areas that the large campground is around. Of course a lot of people walk along the road thereabouts so maybe that was a consideration. I do know that quite a forest of short pines were growing up all along the road. Nothing one way or the other that I have any interest in but I can understand what may behind their decision. Over a period of decades, the extent of lodgepole pine growth in Tuolumne Meadows is limited by years when the meadows are severely flooded for weeks during the spring melt. Such tends to drown young lodgepoles crimping their advance. Considering current global warming, I would expect that is now a factor in meadow shrinkage. Something that we humans ought not manipulate across its general large areas.
Here's a curious analog much farther north in California. The staff at Lava Beds Natl Monument during the past year or so have been cutting down the junipers that have been growing in the lava fields. They've also cut down those growing in the soil that has been developing on top of no-longer-visible lava fields. The reason for the cutting (which was followed by stacking lots of former junipers into large piles here and there) is that there are no or very few junipers in the photographs of the area that were taken about 150 years ago. So the cutting was said to have restored the area to its natural state.
(I like junipers. They grow in shapes that mimic the trees that would like to grow where the junipers grow but that need far more water than junipers need. They grow wonderfully gnarly bark after a couple of centuries or so. They do for their ecosystems what other trees do for moister ecosystems. Nevertheless, hereabouts junipers have the reputation of being "thirsty" trees that suck up prodigious amounts of groundwater. This reputation excuses cutting them down so the land they managed can be irrigated for potatoes or hay or just pasture. Some people cite the "invasion" of junipers farther east (Great Basin) into what had been grassland as more evidence of their undesirablity. That trees and grasses may behave in patterns that take centuries to become apparent is not a welcome suggestion.)
Anyway, about the piles of former junipers in Lava Beds Natl Monument. There was a major fire there this past summer that kept the area closed to visitors for a couple of weeks. It would have been interesting to see what the fire would have done to the junipers had the junipers not been cut down. In another century and a half someone may find out.
Posted by David Senesac on October 25, 2008 at 1:07 PM
Hello Rosemarie,
As you have posed your story, it does seem to be a situation where one would seriously question those in charge as to why. And your reason that it was about a view may indeed be all to what that is about much like the Tuolumne Meadows situation. However not knowing the full story, I would tend to be rather suspicious that there isn't more to that story. For instance in that same region here is a link to something similar that might have more credibility:
In any case we can all agree that we in the public ought keep a close watch on those that are tasked with administering our parks and public lands. Despite the fact there tends to be reasonable processes in place, often with public transparency, and those in positions of decisions are likely to be considerate trained stewards with an interest in the public good, we all know that individuals left to their own devices regardless of their organizations have the potential to purpetrate selfish deeds and make poor decisions. Prior generations to the more recent few were wrought with a long list of such anti-environmental activities.
Thanks for the link, David. Lest you (or anyone else) misunderstand what I learned from staff about the cutting of junipers, the reason for cutting was to restore the area to the condition shown in late nineteenth-century photographs. The photographs were assumed to have portrayed the "natural state" of the lava beds. The cutting was not done to enable more or better views (as in Yosemite) but to get rid of the junipers.
My point is that the 19th-century photos portrayed one of the natural states of the lava beds.
The NPS document to which you linked contains the conclusions that when fires do not occur for fifty years juniper "encroachment" is extreme (creates woodland) and when fires do not occur for twenty years juniper "encroachment" is substantial (affects scrubland), in both cases diminishing the habitat for "more productive" vegetation (fescue). The word "productive" puts me on high alert. Cattle can eat fescue as long as it's not truly buried by the snow; cattle cannot eat junipers. (I have nothing against fescue; I think it's my favorite grass.)
Apparently it had been a very long human time since any significant fires in the lava beds. So there was a considerable population of junipers. The irony of all this is that they did not need to have been cut down because last summer's fire would have . . . done what? to them. You and I and our contemporaries will most probably never know.
Posted by Stan Rose on October 26, 2008 at 5:44 PM
The last time i was in Yosemite, i witnessed dozens of people trampling the fragile meadows at Tuolomne, and large quantities of trash (including used toilet paper) littering some of the popular trails along the Valley. Then, i got smoked out by some extensive "prescribed burns" that were being done to supposedly save the scenery from the potential of arson-related conflagrations. In comparison, the loss of a few trees seems insignificant (although it does take away from the challenge of finding a decent comp!)
Posted by Ken Smith on December 18, 2008 at 1:18 PM
I remember this topic discussed w/my Dad in the 1970's. As Chief Ranger in Yosemite during the 1960's, I knew he had opinions. Trees were lopped off for vista turnouts. I had another thought and felt that Yosemite Valley should have ALL the structures and roads removed. I was imagining the valley preserved for its stunning raw beauty and available only for those willing to backpack. That sounded attractive to me in my self-serving and youthfull status. His words are still true today, "Then the very young, the disabled, and the old would never have the opportunity to enjoy it. And you still have hundreds of miles in backcountry trails to enjoy, which they cannot." I felt selfish after that rebuff. So where do you draw the line? If trees are allowed to block views, then only those able to hike a trail that rises above those trees will be able to enjoy unobstructed views. And the risk is that fewer people will partake and be advocates for parks.
The answer is subjective, a judgement call in which someone weighs which elements within the park will be sacrificed so that the greatest numbers can enjoy today and forever. Ken S
Discussion
14 repliesSometime last year without any public input, they whacked off all the fast growing alders that had grown up since the reconstruction after the 1997 flood in front of the Valley View viewpoint. That of course brought out more complaints but the deed was done. Now the Tunnel View project is complete and was just dedicated. Here's a story on that with our brand new view that photographers will certainly show a thumbs up for. Be sure to take a look at the following image of what it had looked like via NEXT>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=0&f=/c/a/2008/10/24/MN9713N2MR.DTL
Guy
Geological and biological processes will happen with or without our involvement, and IMO the NPS has no business playing god for reasons of commerce.
However, having said that, viewpoints serve a purpose and allow many people to enjoy the beauty of a grand vista who would otherwise not be able to (people with disabilities for example...or people who do not have the time or inclination to hit the trails). IMO, removing a few trees from a dedicated viewpoint along a major highway through the park is not that big a deal. One could just as easily argue that building a trail or a small bridge over a creek in the back country would be just as damaging as removing a few trees from a viewpoint. Where do you draw the line?
Managing the parks for the enjoyment and benefit of all has got to be a daunting task and there is no doubt that various actions (just like this one) will please some while angering others. (The same could be said of just about any issue or cause.) Considering that the NPS has to deal with 3.4 million visitors annually (at Yosemite alone!) with dwindling resources, compromises have to be made. I'm sure many decisions are based on which option will provide the greatest benefit for the most visitors with the smallest environmental impacts while expending the least amount of resources. Not an easy thing to juggle.
My $0.02
Does this mean that you think the roads and viewing spots themselves should be allowed to dissappear as biological processes take over? Just curious...
The roads and vista pullouts were manufactured by and are maintained by man. Unless we're pulling all signs of human life out of the Valley, maintenance of at least the roads is obviously necessary. The trees are not manufactured or planted by man. Keep in mind that the view of the valley was as predictably amazing as ever, just obscured in part by a few trees and thereby impeding the picture-perfect postcard view.
Since when has it been the NPS mission to make sure everyone goes home with the picture perfect snapshot of the Valley?
I accept that Yosemite Valley is a very altered landscape at the hand of man, but a line needs to be drawn someplace. Although it is virtually managed as one, an amusement park it is not.
It had come to the point in Yosemite's popular photo spots that people were spreading out off the regular access points in search of unobscured views along with a little elbowroom away from the crowds. Tunnel View had reached the point that about a 5' stretch of the rockwall provided a clear view. Lots of new "trails" were growing below the turnout and uphill, and meanwhile the lot, road and crossing were becoming traffic hazards due to oblivious people. I don't see any difference between a few trees or alders and the cryptobiotic crust and plants in Arches lost to the hardened trails there. Or are we now placing value judgements on which plants are okay to destroy and which aren't? I could give a rip about a few of Yosemite's alders and pines in exchange for better people management to control the spread of incidental damage.
It sounds like you are trying to pose the issue in terms of a slippery slope argument. Lets see if I can wing a bit of logic here.
Such was posed on the mentioned board at length and was not difficult to rebut. The usual argument along those lines was started by someone making an angry list of various outrageous ways the park service might arbitrarily cut down or remove view impediments from a list of situations. Of course most were outrageous examples in order to indicate actions any would find revolting and emphasize how opening that door seemed to necessarily mean there was hardly a limit to what might follow. In my opinion those doing so didn't spend much time considering how the situation was not so black and white. How the park takes this kind of action in a long list of ways maintaining and building considered park infrastructure as needed. The difference is here some immediately have a reaction condemning such a notion maybe because it is merely "the view" that is involved as though that is something that might not be considered. Even if such is inside the area of infrastructure.
My basic strategy in arguing on the board was to differentiate special highly modified public viewpoints from all the other possibilities and that considerate minds in park management ought to be able to easily make reasoned pragmatic decisions. In the viewpoints mentioned, they are among the most popular at the park, with a target that includes the full range of possible visitors. Locations that have always been paved parking lots with fascilities that no doubt a few hundred years ago would have likely been forest just as is currently adjacent. Considering such, the mandate of the park ought to be to manage such unnatural structured viewpoints within its local confines with the best interest of providing the public its intended purpose. Accordingly vegetation as in trees etc that grow within its unnatural confines are subject to considered removal.
From Valley View along the North Loop Road beside the Merced River, there is a huge ugly incence cedar log that been stuck up on shallow rocks right in front of the viewpoint since the last major El Nino winter. I would be with those who would be on the side of letting things in the river remain as they are. Its out beyond the concrete reinforced bank unlike the mentioned alders. Likewise since early in the last century, tall pines trees across the river in Bridalveil Meadow have grown up to such a height, that the Bridalveil Falls barely pokes out above the top of those trees. Should someone thus cut those pines down so visitors might have a similar view to those decades ago when the area was mostly lower black oaks? Of course not.
Now as to the Tuolumne Meadows lodgepole pine cutting, I would agree that is further down the slippery slope and more controversial to argue against. In this case unlike the other two, I suspect that view has nothing to do with photographers but rather probably opening up the tourist views from the much developed areas of store and gas station areas that the large campground is around. Of course a lot of people walk along the road thereabouts so maybe that was a consideration. I do know that quite a forest of short pines were growing up all along the road. Nothing one way or the other that I have any interest in but I can understand what may behind their decision. Over a period of decades, the extent of lodgepole pine growth in Tuolumne Meadows is limited by years when the meadows are severely flooded for weeks during the spring melt. Such tends to drown young lodgepoles crimping their advance. Considering current global warming, I would expect that is now a factor in meadow shrinkage. Something that we humans ought not manipulate across its general large areas.
David Senesac
http://www.davidsenesac.com
(I like junipers. They grow in shapes that mimic the trees that would like to grow where the junipers grow but that need far more water than junipers need. They grow wonderfully gnarly bark after a couple of centuries or so. They do for their ecosystems what other trees do for moister ecosystems. Nevertheless, hereabouts junipers have the reputation of being "thirsty" trees that suck up prodigious amounts of groundwater. This reputation excuses cutting them down so the land they managed can be irrigated for potatoes or hay or just pasture. Some people cite the "invasion" of junipers farther east (Great Basin) into what had been grassland as more evidence of their undesirablity. That trees and grasses may behave in patterns that take centuries to become apparent is not a welcome suggestion.)
Anyway, about the piles of former junipers in Lava Beds Natl Monument. There was a major fire there this past summer that kept the area closed to visitors for a couple of weeks. It would have been interesting to see what the fire would have done to the junipers had the junipers not been cut down. In another century and a half someone may find out.
As you have posed your story, it does seem to be a situation where one would seriously question those in charge as to why. And your reason that it was about a view may indeed be all to what that is about much like the Tuolumne Meadows situation. However not knowing the full story, I would tend to be rather suspicious that there isn't more to that story. For instance in that same region here is a link to something similar that might have more credibility:
http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=%22lava+beds%22+cutting+junipers&y=Search&xa=RQv_JACqPYllNevk_Q9AEg--%2C1225038996&fr=slv1-&u=www.fws.gov/klamathbasinrefuges/newsletters/Summerfall20072.pdf&w=%22lava+beds%22+cutting+junipers&d=HsxN40LURhMD&icp=1&.intl=us
In any case we can all agree that we in the public ought keep a close watch on those that are tasked with administering our parks and public lands. Despite the fact there tends to be reasonable processes in place, often with public transparency, and those in positions of decisions are likely to be considerate trained stewards with an interest in the public good, we all know that individuals left to their own devices regardless of their organizations have the potential to purpetrate selfish deeds and make poor decisions. Prior generations to the more recent few were wrought with a long list of such anti-environmental activities.
David
My point is that the 19th-century photos portrayed one of the natural states of the lava beds.
The NPS document to which you linked contains the conclusions that when fires do not occur for fifty years juniper "encroachment" is extreme (creates woodland) and when fires do not occur for twenty years juniper "encroachment" is substantial (affects scrubland), in both cases diminishing the habitat for "more productive" vegetation (fescue). The word "productive" puts me on high alert. Cattle can eat fescue as long as it's not truly buried by the snow; cattle cannot eat junipers. (I have nothing against fescue; I think it's my favorite grass.)
Apparently it had been a very long human time since any significant fires in the lava beds. So there was a considerable population of junipers. The irony of all this is that they did not need to have been cut down because last summer's fire would have . . . done what? to them. You and I and our contemporaries will most probably never know.
The answer is subjective, a judgement call in which someone weighs which elements within the park will be sacrificed so that the greatest numbers can enjoy today and forever. Ken S