Posted on 08/28/2026 3:09:10 PM PDT by Libloather
For more than a year, the National Park Service has been quietly working to fulfill an unprecedented directive from Trump officials: Parcel off a corner of Yosemite National Park to give to a private developer.
National Park Service staff in California and Washington, D.C., are trying to arrange a land exchange between a Nevada-based company and the federal government, according to four people directly familiar with discussions, as well as agency documents reviewed by NOTUS.
Since the spring of 2025, the Trump administration has been looking into ways it could cede a roughly quarter-mile strip of land inside Yosemite to a company that, through a web of limited-liability companies, is operated by real-estate developer and investment firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital. Officials are proposing the Park Service give up the land or “interest” in the land in the form of an easement, and in return receive land of equal value somewhere in California that has yet to be decided.
The private developers own an 83-acre plot of land just outside the western boundaries of Yosemite, about five miles from one of the park’s defining ancient sequoia groves. Jeff Pori, the CEO of Kingsbarn, wants to build a short road connecting the property to one of Yosemite’s central thoroughfares. The new road would give the land exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests.
(Excerpt) Read more at notus.org ...
I’ve used the northern (down along the Yellowstone River and down Paradise Valley) and the western entries.
But whatever. A land swap is not a giveaway. The question is whether there is an equitable exchange of value. There are plenty of bounday and inholder issues that could use some smoothing out. In many cases, it may be irrelevant to the park’s operation while solving an inholder’s problem.
The NPS cannot accept any property that lies outside the park boundary, which is established by Act of Congress. This comes up a lot around Civil War battlefields. In most cases, the existing park boundary does NOT include the whole battlefield. This is universally the ribbon parks, that were the dominant pattern in the early era of Civil War parks. Private landowners sometimes wish to donate battlefield land to the NPS, but NPS cannot accept it. Or one of the private preservation organizations may purchase an inholding but be unable to donate the land to the park until Congress acts.
Put data centers on federal land.
“Good idea but you have to SECRETLY tell them that the caldera has GOLD or JADE. HAS to be secretly and they must PROMISE not to spread that secret.Guaranteed to sucker them them into it.”
And we guarantee a gigantic fireworks display with every sale!
National parks should be for US citizens.
That would solve some overcrowding issues.
Go to Yellowstone in the summer and you might wait outside the gate all day.
It reeks of “privilege!”
So, what’s new?
Thanks for that info. Beautiful place and it should be left alone. I watched 20/20 “Evil in Eden” last night..I knew I’d seen it before or the story had been detailed on TV long ago about the kidnapping of Steven Stayner and the murders committed by his brother Cary at Yosemite. Ironic it was on the evening this thread had been discussed on FR...
I see an article in the San Jose Mercury News - about an appeal by the brother this year of his death sentence but can’t read it as that paper always blocks their readers. I would have thought they’d get with the “modern” age after all this time...More than one way to “skin a cat.”
HELL NO !
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