Given the radicalism of Obama, I wouldn't be surprised to see these bridges destroyed before January. It's probably ranked high on their agenda.
It's hard to believe that our government once built these magnificent structures. That was before the government types got infected with some bizarre disease.
I only see two choices...leave things like they are....or remove ever essence of modern world items entirely (bridges, roads, paths, hotels, camp grounds, etc).
Make Yosemite Valley the most unused place on the face of the Earth...even by environmentalists.
The left and the environmentalists are the Talee-bahn of the USA. They would prefer that we revert to pre-industrial revolution America. In essence they are dangerous lunatics with Unicorn farts for brains.
The left disgusts me.
Seems to me that the bridges of Yellowstone are a means of facilitating the intended purpose of the park. In fact, its going on all over the country.
Last time I was at Pictured Rocks national lakeshore some clown handed me a flier promoting closing the roads to private vehicles and using shuttles instead. I told the first ranger I ran into that if such a plan were implemented, I would not return.
They are as bad as the radical Muslims that destroy ancient religious symbols.
envirowackies are getting to be like Muzzies who destroy Christian icons and other architectual buildings....I am so SICK of these people.
The lunatics truly are running the asylum.
That’s a nice looking bridge.
Wonder what the story is on the little door sized arch on the far side?
There is the town of Tombstone that wants alter boulders and rock after nature did a number on their water rights.
Since 0bama's son doesn't live in Tombstone they are out of luck!
It is sickening to see the US go back to the time when Mohammad walked the earth.
The goal: to exclude the unwashed (read non-eviroweenies) from as much public land as possible.
How about they work on Hetch Hetchy first? Same park. Much bigger impact, since they flooded a whole valley to do it. Some claim a prettier valley than the one in question here.
More crap from our People hating, “dirt-firsters”.
They want to remove man’s footprint from the planet.
This is NOT about “cleaning up” anything.
This is about destroying industry and capitalism.
But, only in the West.
They’re fine with granting exemptions to China and India, who are the world’s worst polluters.
Ironically, Yosemite Valley was acquired by force from tribes who would never have let the process get this far. Since they were expelled, “preservation” and fire-suppression have assured that the meadow is eventually doomed, BUT… is that a bad thing? Well, it depends upon what whoever-is-in-charge wants. Pollen studies show that even the grassy meadow was a result of the change in management. 500 years before the Ahwaneechee were expelled; the Valley had been primarily a conifer forest.
Yosemite had been a remote battleground between Miwuk and Paiute tribes, both of whom evidently preferred more productive ground. It is likely that someone eventually torched the conifer forest in Yosemite Valley so that they could make it more productive by farming. It was not at all uncharacteristic for California Indians to introduce and tend crop plants. For example, black oak only spread as far as an animal will carry acorns; they were most likely planted here.
Once the Indians were gone, cattle were brought in for vegetation management; hence the grass. Grass was what the managers wanted. Today, it’s an unhappy struggle between the Park Service, activists, and customers who bring in most of the cash. Tourists want trees, but not if they get in the way of the “Natural” view. They want wildlife, even if the animals preclude growing the plants that would return the Park to its former state. The Park Service acquires its assets by pitching this wacky idea that “Nature” means “no people,” so a chainsaw is out. As the forest heads toward a decadent monoculture ready to explode, the “managers” hold their breath, doing what they can while taking a paycheck from customers they despise. If it burns, the wildlife will just have to “deal with it,” which effectively means if they survive the fire they will starve to death, just like they did in Yellowstone after the 1989 fire.
Most tourists would find a catastrophic fire a hard sell and they don’t like stumps or smoke either, so thinning is out. Nobody would pay much for such crummy trees as they have in Yosemite, even if there was a saw mill within affordable trucking distance (which there isn’t thanks to the same philosophy, never mind that John Muir himself once worked at a sawmill in the Valley). Of course, few care about overstocked trees because most people believe “Nature” should be “preserved.” The problem with that idea is that it is physically impossible.
So, what if the Valley did burn catastrophically, just as it did 650 years ago? How would they re-establish “native” plants without a very destructive weed battle?
The condition of land ultimately reflects the historic preferences of those in charge. Today, it’s “the public,” that is, until the bureaucrats and activists close the Park off to automobiles per the Yosemite Valley Plan, to “save” it from their customers and keep it to themselves (better employee housing is a top priority of the plan). In reality, this hugely unpopular plan is only the first step. The bureaucrats have grander dreams they don’t really tell anybody about, because they know for a fact that most people won’t like what it might take to get there.
Why? Is it all that bad?
Well, like any bureaucratic plan it is hugely expensive, it will employ lots of scientists and consultants who get pay for play, and the outcome will demand minute control over those “annoying” and clueless customers. Fortunately, the goals haven’t been infested with the likes of the Park Service’s preference for cryptogamic crusts in Zion and Canyonlands. They want to “restore” the Valley to a state similar to the way the Indians had it, but note, that is NOT what was “Natural” 500 years before that. The bureaucrats know, just as any rational person would, that people can make the land more productive and beautiful. They want it that way too; most everybody does.
Considering what we saw in Mesa Verde and the Kaibab Plateau, there is reason to doubt their eventual success. Perhaps that is because there is a serious moral problem here besides misrepresenting a product taken at gunpoint from its original owners and then taking the credit for its beauty while not knowing how to run it.
The reality is that there will NEVER be enough people or money to truly bring the land to express its full potential with packs of ravening lawyers, bureaucrats dominated by procedure, manipulative foundations, scientists fanning their egos from ivory towers, and a distracted public imbued with the power of emotive whimsy… ALL trying to call the shots over “their park” from remote locations. Hopefully you have recognized that this is about covetousness for land on the part of every one of these groups without real accountability for a productive outcome.
Restoring land starts with people who live there, know a little spot intimately, and have serious stake in its productivity from generation to generation, effectively a network of private plots, the way it was with the Ahwaneechee.
Why is that so hard to accept? Well, it’s really quite simple: If the Park was cut up into privately controlled plots, it wouldn’t be “our park” any more.
Now to be honest, I once felt possessive about Yosemite too, but you know, since acquiring the commitment to make one of my own, that collectivist urge just isn’t there.
Since the environmentalists are such naturalists, let them stand in the river day and night and hold up the bridge and carry people across on their shoulders like they did in the good old natural days.
Remember those commercials with that “I’m a dam-buster” guy? I hated him and those moronic commercials.