Along a stretch of a state highway leading to Yosemite National Park, a band of conservationists has been buying up vacant land. The group has cobbled together about 400 acres in a desirable meadow off Highway 120. But the scrappy Tuolumne County Land Trust is no match for a proposed golf-course community that would rise next to its land onto a spur of Table Mountain, a 500-foot lava formation fabled by Western author Bret Harte. "A little land trust like ours - nobody even listens to us," said Marlee Powell, who also is Sonora's mayor. The only way to compete...
