Going Wild

For some of the visitors who jam Yosemite Valley on summer weekends, the grandeur of its granite domes and thundering waterfalls just isn't enough. These demanding consumers want to go horseback riding, play tennis or golf and then cool down with glasses of Chablis from their hotel minibars. And, of course, get snapshots of their vacation developed in just four hours at a nearby photo shop.

This summer, however, Yosemite vacationers will have to rough it. A bulldozer will soon reduce the photo store to rubble. Many other amenities are being cut off and freedoms restricted. Gift shops will be demolished. Raft rides have been be curbed. Campfires are sharply limited. Meadows are off limits to pedestrians.

All these changes, which are taking place in many of the national parks across the U.S., reflect a new way of thinking. Gone are the days of luring visitors by building hotels, cutting archways in redwood trees and pushing bonfires off cliffs to create rustic fireworks. Backed by the Clinton Administration and Congress, park rangers aim to return the parks to a more natural state, maintaining them as wild sanctuaries rather than theme parks. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, for his part, vows to ban new construction, from roads to lodging. "If you want to play golf, watch people feeding bears or see a nighttime firefall, don't expect to do it in a national park," he declared in May. Environmentalists applaud the back-to-nature shift. "This is the first long swing of the pendulum away from development," says Paul Pritchard, president of the National Parks and Conservation Association.

The change has been provoked by overuse. National parks have become plagued by much of the urban frenzy from which people try to flee in the first place. Besides being the home of America's highest mountain, biggest glacier, tallest geyser and longest cave, the park system now has some of the densest crowds, dirtiest air, ugliest architecture and longest traffic jams. Last year the national-park system's 367 areas drew 273 million visitors, more than double the crowds of 30 years ago, and the throng is expected to double again in just a decade. In response, park custodians have decided to cut back sharply on visitors' access and creature comforts as a necessary cost of protecting the oases for future generations. "Making an honest determination about a visitor's experience is a very difficult balancing act," says Michael Finley, superintendent of Yosemite. "I will always err on the side of the natural resource."

Attendance at Yosemite, 200 miles northeast of San Francisco, has increased 10% this year, compared with the same period in 1993 and is expected to total 4 million by year's end. Locals refer to the park as "YosemiCity." The park's carrying capacity, as biologists term it, is stretched to the limit. As a result, superintendent Finley has imposed drastic cutbacks. Sales of souvenirs and other retail items are being slashed 25% and overnight accommodations 20%. Dozens of cabins and more than 100 campsites beside the Merced River will be taken out. To stop the trampling of meadows, Finley has built split-rail fences and boardwalks. KEEP OUT signs have been posted along riverbanks denuded of fragile vegetation.To protect fish, anglers must use barbless hooks and release all the rainbow trout they catch.