A New Emphasis on the High Country
With the completion of an all-year highway into Yosemite Valley and the realignment of portions of the Big Oak Flat and Tioga roads, the accessibility of Yosemite National Park to the motorist reached its peak, and since that time serious thought has been given to modification of the road system. The Commonwealth Club, in a comprehensive report entitled, “Should We Stop Building New Roads into California’s High Mountains?” concluded that accessibility had already reached, if it had not passed, a desirable maximum, on the basis of a stand for the preservation of mountain wilderness values made by many Sportsmen’s organizations and the Sierra Club. The National Park Service gave consideration, in its Yosemite Master Plan, to the abandonment and obliteration of certain roads which were either superseded by highways or which could be relocated to reduce any detrimental effects upon the mountain landscape. Col. C. G. Thomson led in establishing this trend.
Studies were made by the park administration, the concessionaire, and various organizations outside of the park of means by which present-day visitors, who were now arriving by automobile in hurried throngs numbering as many as 30,000 persons on a single holiday week end, might enjoy the park to some degree at least in the manner that the pioneers had enjoyed it. Improvement of the trails, of outlying facilities, education in the means of trail travel, and the development of an all-season program that would help to spread the peak of travel into a plateau, were steps taken and which are being taken in the attempt to halt the tendency of the public to make of Yosemite Valley an urban “resort.”
High Sierra camps were developed, as described elsewhere in this book. They were visited by travelers afoot or in the saddle, and “foot-burners” and pack outfits visited the remote regions of the park, where no improvements upon nature are permitted other than those which a man can carry in—and carry back out again when he leaves. The numbers of people who are attracted to the back country have increased mightily, but the congestion of crowds in Yosemite Valley is still great. This fact in itself constitutes a reason for increasing the effort to introduce visitors to the wonders of the wild high country.
David R. Brower, an officer of the Sierra Club and an ardent proponent of rock-climbing as a sport, and an accomplished skier, has reviewed the development of these forms of recreation in Yosemite. He has kindly agreed to my use of the following portion of an enlightening account, most of which has not previously appeared in print:
“To a few people—fortunately, perhaps, a very few—even a trail detracts a little from the feeling of ‘roughing it.’ Too clearly, the foot of man, or of mule, has trod there before them. Consequently, those who would get especially close to nature have become skilled in woodcraft so as to take care of themselves and have then struck off not only from the highways and roads, but also from the horse trails and footpaths. Muir and Anderson were pioneers in this form of recreation. A few have carried on where they left off. Routes were found through trailless Tenaya Canyon to the high country above; Muir Gorge, in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, presented an obstacle where the waters of that river were confined in a narrow, vertical-walled box canyon, but it has proved not to be an obstacle to good swimmers in periods of low water. Muir discovered Fern Ledge and crossed it along the tremendous face of the Yosemite Falls cliff, until he was under the upper fall itself. Charles Michael, years later, and William Kat, to this day, followed Muir’s footsteps and made new ones of their own on other Yosemite byways, such as the Gunsight to the top of Bridalveil Fall, Mount Starr King, the Lower Brother. For the most part these men, and others of similar bent, climbed alone. Michael was almost to regret it when, on an ascent of Piute Point, he fell a few feet, broke his leg, and was just able to drag himself back to the valley—to climb again when the break had knitted.
“These pioneers of the byways were limited, not by lack of enterprise, but by lack of modern equipment and the technique for its use; both of these required assets came to Yosemite in 1933. A year before that a Rock-Climbing Section was formed in the Sierra Club, and its members brought Alpine technique, which they had practiced and improved in local metropolitan rock parks, to Yosemite. Skillfully using rope and piton technique, and developing their balance climbing to a point where they are able to ascend Half Dome without recourse to any artificial aids, much less cableways, members of this and similar sections, men and women alike, have pioneered many new routes on the valley walls, some extremely difficult. The present total of routes to the rim, exclusive of the trails, is forty-five. Spires and pinnacles not accessible by other means were especially challenging. The higher and lower Cathedral Spires were climbed in 1934 by the party of Jules M. Eichorn, Richard M. Leonard, and Bestor Robinson. The routes for this and other climbs are described in the Yosemite Valley section of a comprehensive ‘Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra,’ being published serially by the Sierra Club.
By D. R. Brower Ski Mountaineering Party near Mount Starr King
By D. R. Brower Climbing on the Three Brothers
By R. M. Leonard Descending Lower Cathedral Spire
“Construed at present as the ultimate in technical rock-climbing was the ascent, September 2, 1946, of the Lost Arrow by the party of Jack Arnold, Robin Hansen, Fritz Lippmann, and Anton Nelson. The party used more than a thousand feet of rope and many pounds of mountaineer’s hardware. They first managed to throw a light line over the summit. Two men remained in support at the rim. The other two went down a rope to the notch separating the pinnacle from the valley wall, and with expert technique were able to climb 100 feet of the rock’s outer face, nearly 3,000 sheer feet above the valley floor, until they could reach the lower end of the line. With this they pulled rope over the summit. Another 100 feet of climbing on that rope, with help from the men on the rim, brought them to the top on the evening of the third day. On the crowded, rounded summit they drilled small holes for two expansion bolts, anchored ropes to them, and in the moonlight worked across the gap to the rim on the airy, swinging ropes.
“Needless to say, such climbs as this should not be undertaken without the necessary background of experience. Foolhardy attempts by the overoptimistic to take short cuts or cross-country routes into unknown hazards all too often result in arduous and dangerous rescue operations by park rangers. The National Park Service requires, in Yosemite and in other ‘mountaineering’ parks, that persons desiring to climb off the trail register first at park headquarters, where, as a matter of the visitor’s own protection, he can be advised whether he has the adequate equipment or skill for his proposed undertaking, and where he announces his destination so that rangers will know where to look for him in case of trouble.
“If trails or cross-country routes have afforded the summer visitor a fuller knowledge of Yosemite National Park and its hidden wild places, certainly the improvement of access to various park areas in winter has also increased the enjoyment of the superlative scenery for which Yosemite was set aside as a national park in the first place.
“In the first days of winter sports in Yosemite, snowballing, tobogganing, skating, and sliding down small hills on toe-strapped skis was enough for the winter visitor. Snow, to Californians at least, was novelty enough in itself. But the surge of interest in skiing as a sport of skill that arrived after World War I, the resulting vast improvement in ski equipment and apparel, and the winter accessibility brought about by use of snow-removal equipment, inevitably stimulated skiers to demand greatly improved facilities for skiing. The National Park Service, required by law to be custodians of outstanding scenic resources for all the people, in all seasons, for present and future enjoyment, very properly ‘made haste slowly.’ Other areas, administered by agencies whose obligations were less exacting, developed facilities far more rapidly, and the pressure on the National Park Service, in Yosemite and elsewhere, was greatly increased.
“Ski development in Yosemite involved serious scenic, economic, and geographic considerations. The development should not damage the scenic values for which the park was created. It should, nevertheless, be so situated that the skier could enjoy that scenery without going far beyond the areas in which utilities were available; otherwise, the facilities would be used primarily by persons who wanted only to ski and not to enjoy the Yosemite scene. Such persons could be better accommodated elsewhere. The area developed for skiing should not be so close to the valley rim as to be dangerous. From the concessionaire’s standpoint, the development should make use of, and not duplicate, hotel facilities already available; otherwise, it would not be worth the financial risk. Where the Park Service was concerned, economically, it should be close enough to the valley not to require excessive road maintenance and snow removal and should not be too difficult to administer, for the Park Service, after all, could only spend what Congress appropriated in the annual budget. As for the man who skied in Yosemite for the sake of skiing, his wants were simple. In the aggregate, he wanted high and low cost accommodations built at an elevation where the best snow lay the longest and the slopes were most open; he wanted satisfactory uphill transportation to enable him to spend most of his time and energy sliding down; he wanted cleared runs and marked trails, outlying huts for touring, and excellent ski instruction patterned after the best European ski schools. He wanted ski competition scheduled, and long courses on which to race. He, moreover, wanted all this in a quantity that would take care of four thousand or more skiers on a week end, without overcrowding the facilities or overburdening his purse.
“What could the National Park Service do? The development at Badger Pass was the result. The ski house, upski, rope tows, Constam lift, the runs of various types, the ski school, the cleared roads and parking area, the ranger ski patrol, the marked touring trails, and the touring hut at Ostrander Lake are all part of a development that is compatible with the national park concept. Improvements will inevitably follow. In the development so far, full enjoyment has been provided for the tens of thousands of skiers who, although they like improvements, would still prefer that the administrators of the national parks continue to make haste slowly in any attempt to improve upon the natural scene.”
CHAPTER VIII
HOTELS AND THEIR KEEPERS
The early public interest manifested in the scenic beauties of Yosemite prompted a few far-sighted local men of the mountains to prepare for the influx of travelers that they felt was bound to occur. J. M. Hutchings had no more than related his experiences of his first visit in 1855 before Milton and Huston Mann undertook the improvement of the old Mariposa Indian trail leading to the valley. The next year Bunnell developed a trail from the north side of the gorge. The first visitors were from the camps of the Southern Mines, chiefly, but there were a few from San Francisco and interior towns, as well. During those first years of travel the few visitors expected to “rough it”; they were men and women accustomed to the wilds, and comforts were hardly required. Yet those pioneer hotelkeepers who had provided crude shelters found that their establishments were patronized. Hotelkeeping takes a place very near the beginning of the Yosemite story.
The valley was then public domain. Although unsurveyed, it was generally conceded that homesteads within it might be claimed by whosoever persevered in establishing rights. The prospect of great activity in developing Frémont’s “Mariposa Estate” caused certain citizens of Mariposa to turn their attention to Yosemite Valley as the source of a much-needed water supply. Bunnell reveals that commercial interests had designs upon the valley as early as 1855. A survey of the valley and the canyon below was made in that year by L. H. Bunnell and George K. Peterson with the idea of making a reservoir.
The Cosmopolitan, 1870-1932
The Lower Hotel, 1856-1869
The first house to be constructed there was built in 1856 by the company interested in this water project. Bunnell states: “It was of white cedar ‘puncheons,’ plank split out of logs. The builders of it supposed that a claim in the valley would doubly secure the water privileges. We made this building our headquarters, covering the roof with our tents.”
The first permanent hotel structure was also started that year. It became known as the “Lower Hotel.” During the next decade it and the Upper Hotel found no competitors. At the close of the ’sixties, however, the hotel business of Yosemite Valley flashed rather prominently in the commerce of the state.
A volume might be written on the efforts of honest proprietors to serve the early tourist; on the scheming of less scrupulous claimants to capitalize on their Yosemite holdings; on the humorous reaction of unsuspecting visitors within the early hostelries; and, finally, on the story of later-day developments which now care for the throng that, annually, partakes of Yosemite offerings. The full history of Yosemite hotels is eminently worth the telling, but the present work will be content in pointing to interesting recorded incidents in the story.