Free Republic

Our national parks offer an opportunity to get away from it all. Deep in the bowels of neo-Bolshevism, the most gut-wrenchingly disgusting manifestations of moonbattery are shoved down your throat. But escape to Yosemite National Park and you will be greeted by unspoiled nature… …unless leftists have gotten there first: A coalition of transgender, queer and LGBTQIA+ ally rock climbers hung the 55-by-35-foot transgender pride flag from the towering El Capitan rock formation in the central California national park around 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday, May 20, a group spokesperson told USA TODAY. The coalition, operating under the project name...

A group of frustrated Yosemite National Park staffers hoping to draw attention to the federal government’s sweeping workforce cuts hung an upside-down American flag Saturday thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan. The 3,000-foot granite cliff looms above Yosemite Valley, and thousands of eyes were on it Saturday evening for the dramatic stunt: It’s the last weekend of the annual firefall spectacle, which brings scores of onlookers to Yosemite. Dozens, if not hundreds, of large telephoto cameras set up by visitors Saturday in a viewing area on the valley floor were trained high on El...

Elmer Fudd in A Wild Hare, public domain wikimediacommonsThe sources are from four years ago. Looney Tunes decision to remove guns from the cartoon characters Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam is not a bad idea. It is positive in ways which are the opposite of what was intended. In an interview, the new Looney Tunes executive producer, Peter Browngart, makes clear the removal of guns from the cartoons was an ideological decision. From the New York Times:“We’re not doing guns,” Browngardt said. “But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.”Yahoo...

On July 13, during a heavy rainstorm in Yosemite National Park, an Arizona State University student slipped and fell to her death from the Half Dome cables. Park officials did not issue a statement about the death and declined to comment for this story. But Jonathan Rohloff — who was descending the cables with his 20-year-old daughter Grace when she slipped — confirmed that she did not survive. “Grace was such a beautiful soul,” he said in a phone interview with SFGATE. “She deserves to have her story told.” The father-daughter duo had hiked together countless times and over thousands...

Last summer, a large wildfire that came to be known as the Oak Fire scorched its way across California's Mariposa County and threatened Yosemite National Park. First reported on July 22, 2022, the Oak Fire burned more than 19,000 acres of land, cost more than $90 million, and evacuations forced the displacement of thousands of Californians and visitors in the fire's path as it rapidly expanded. "Experts say dry air, strong winds, parched trees and grass and soaring temperatures caused the Oak fire to expand rapidly through the rugged foothills in recent days. The area has experienced nearly two weeks...

71-year-old Edward Hackerman was arrested last week and accused of starting last year’s Oak Fire. Hackerman was taken into custody last Friday for starting the fired that charred over 19,000 acres. Hackerman is reportedly a retired firefighter with 12 years experience. The fire destroyed 127 homes and over 60 other buildings. snip Edward Wackerman is a Democrat donor who gave money to The Lincoln Project and other leftist campaigns.

Yosemite National Park remains closed indefinitely as startling photos show popular parts of Yosemite Valley buried in snow. Heated tents in Curry Village and a shuttle stop near Yosemite Falls, both highly trafficked locations even during the cold season, were blanketed in snow. The park originally closed to visitors last weekend as severe winter weather approached the Sierra Nevada. The storm ultimately dumped "up to 15 feet" of snow in some areas of Yosemite, the park noted on Twitter, and created whiteout conditions across the region over several days. For its part, Yosemite Valley tallied 40 inches of snow Tuesday...

Visitors to Yosemite National Park got more than they expected when a rockslide came off the east side of El Capitan on Monday, originating very close to the park’s famous firefall. The tail end of the incident —– which happened at about 11:45 a.m. — was captured on video by photographer James Piper. In the video, the sound of crashing rocks can be heard echoing across the valley as smoke, debris and dust fill the air at the base of the iconic El Capitan. "Holy God," a man in the background can be heard saying. Link to video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1627900010909306882

Yosemite National Park is once again requiring face masks in certain areas of the park. With Mariposa County at the high community level and Tuolumne at the medium community level, the park put out this statement: “Due to the high COVID-19 community level, mask-wearing is now required for all people when entering federal buildings and public transportation in Yosemite National Park, regardless of vaccination status.” TCPH COVID-19 clinics graphic TCPH COVID-19 clinics graphic Masks were also reinstated indoors in June last year when the infection numbers were high as well. Regarding vaccines, Tuolumne County Public Health is holding several COVID-19...

Two people were killed on Tuesday in a rockslide at the Highway 140 entrance of Yosemite National Park. The victims have been identified by Park officials as 51-year-old Georgios Theocharous and 35-year-old Ming Yan, a married couple from San Jose. The incident occurred around 9 am when the couple were driving on El Portal Road, near Big Oak Flat Road. Approximately 185 tons of rock fell 1,000 feet onto the roadway below, pushing the couple’s Dodge Ram onto the embankment of the Merced River. Following a brief closure, Highway 140 once again opened to the public, only to close again...

A fast-moving brush fire near Yosemite National Park exploded in size Saturday into one of California's largest wildfires of the year, prompting evacuation orders for thousands of people and shutting off power to more than 2,000 homes and businesses. The Oak Fire started Friday afternoon southwest of the park near the town of Midpines in Mariposa County and by Saturday morning had rapidly grown to 10.2 square miles, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. 'Fire activity is extreme,' Cal Fire said in a situation report on Saturday, noting that the wildfire is at...

Environmentalists are trying to block the U.S. National Park Service from removing dead and excess trees from Yosemite National Park for fire prevention, saying the effort harms conservation and violates existing federal environmental law.

A Navy helicopter crew looking for a hiker missing in some California mountains east of Yosemite National Park survived after they crashed near the tallest peak in Nevada, and both the searchers and the hiker were rescued over the weekend. The four-member crew escaped injury but had to spend Friday night in the rugged wilderness before being rescued Saturday from a ridge along the California-Nevada line, about 120 miles (193 kilometers) south of Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, authorities said. The Navy is investigating the cause of the crash reported about 5 p.m. Friday, Navy spokesman Zip Upham said Monday....

Earlier this month, they and a group of friends spent nearly a week stringing a single, 2,800-foot (853-meter)-long line from Taft Point west across a series of gulleys that plunge 1,600 feet (488 meters). Moises and Daniel Monterrubio, brothers who are training to be rope-access technicians, had been thinking about crossing that void for a year. Highlining is high-altitude slacklining, in which a narrow strip of strong, nylon webbing — usually an inch wide and a few millimeters thick — is strung between two anchor points and serves as a kind of balance beam. Completing a line means carefully heel-toeing...

The left-wing media in the US are railing against the questions about Joe Biden’s mental capacity and have instead found a bizarre way to prove he’s up to the job says Sky News host Chris Kenny. “I keep telling you, it might be depressing, but this US presidential contest is never going to be boring,” Mr Kenny said. He said CNN has launched a bizarre attempt to prove the presumptive Democratic nominee is up to the job, namely "because he can ride a bike". ...

President Trump pulled an inside straight to win in 2016, and now he needs another one. The good news for Trump is that his approval rating has stopped falling recently. The bad news is that it has stabilized in the low 40s. Election-watcher Harry Enten points out that no president since Harry Truman has won with anything like Trump’s negative net approval rating. Truman won at –6, while incumbents who lost (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush) averaged out at about –13, roughly where Trump’s number is. The presidents who won reelection averaged an approval rating of...

Since the start of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, Democrats have wanted the National Park Service to shut down parks or slowly open facilities across the nation. Despite his party's push to limit how Americans spend their time, particularly outdoors, Congressman TJ Cox (D-CA) pulled strings to get into Yosemite National Park on the 4th of July. Cox, whose district falls close to Yosemite, had his staff request two parking passes for a personal visit to the park. At the time, people could request one of 340 tickets available. Tickets were given on a lottery basis. Because Cox was wanting to...

No one is more important to the history of environmental conservation than John Muir — the “wilderness prophet,” “patron saint of the American wilderness” and “father of the national parks” who founded the nation’s oldest conservation organization, the Sierra Club. But on Wednesday, citing the current racial reckoning, the group announced it will end its blind reverence to a figure who was also racist. As Confederate statues fall across the country, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an early morning post on the group’s website, “it’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some...

The number of black bears has QUADRUPLED at Yosemite since the park closed due to coronavirus as the beasts migrate there while visitors stay away 'The National Park Service (NPS) is working with the federal, state, and local authorities to closely monitor the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) situation.' Ranger Katie, a biologist who's worked with black bears for over a decade, said in a Facebook live stream video that the animals are now having a 'party' since humans have been barred from visiting. There can be literally walls of cars, stop-and-go traffic or people in the park,' she said. 'So, for...

Being cooped up at home is no fun for humans, but bears are making the most of the extra space at California's shuttered Yosemite National Park. "The bears are just literally walking down the road to get to where they need to go," Ranger Katie Patrick said during a Facebook Live event on Sunday. She is a wildlife biologist who has worked with black bears in Yosemite since 2007. "For the most part, I think they're having a party," she said in response to questions about what the animals have been doing since Yosemite closed on March 20. Normally this...