A short, disturbing walk in Yosemite
By DICK DORWORTH
John Muir loved and wrote eloquently about Yosemite and its environs, including, ?The great Tissiack, or Half-Dome, rising at the upper end of the valley to a height of nearly a mile, is nobly proportioned and life-like, the most impressive of all the rocks, holding the eye in devout admiration, calling it back again and again from falls and meadows, or even the mountains beyond ... Thousands of years have they stood in the sky exposed to rain, snow, frost, earthquake and avalanche, yet they still wear the bloom of youth.?
Ansel Adams took beautiful photographs of Yosemite that inspire, inform and hold the eye in devout admiration.
Muir and Adams described and portrayed the best of Yosemite and are its defining artists.
Alas, what they saw no longer exists. After 150 years of modern history, man has done what thousands of years of rain, snow, earthquake and avalanche could not.
Last spring I visited Yosemite, an old haunt, for the first time in many years. Pollution and traffic and over crowding have made Yosemite a place Muir would not recognize. Smog covers the valley and air clarity is gone. Adams? photos could not be taken today.
I hiked up to Half Dome via Vernal and Nevada Falls and Little Yosemite Valley, a six and a half hour round trip, an astonishing experience. Hundreds of people clogged the trail as far as Vernal Fall, dozens as far as Nevada Fall. The last time I?d hiked that trail I?d encountered perhaps 20 people all day. Not until Little Yosemite was the hike anything other than a passage through an urban landscape. The Mist Trail below the falls was reminiscent of walking up one of San Francisco?s hills on a drizzly day, except the trail was more crowded than the streets of that fair city. There were several groups of teen-age students accompanied by teachers. One hugely overweight young man was struggling mightily if unhappily up the stone steps. His friends were cheering him on to persevere and it was not clear that he would be able to do so. The support of the fat boy?s friends was commendable and encouraging, but one manifestation of a particular American pathology is its overabundance of young people for whom walking uphill on a spring day is agony instead of pleasure, major accomplishment instead of ritual of healthy living. It is a safe bet that the obese young man in the bloom of youth did not notice a like bloom on the landscape around him.
There were only a few hikers in Little Yosemite, the first non-urban experience I?d had in a week in Yosemite. The air was hazy, but it was wonderful to feel something of the spiritual glow that infused John Muir?s Yosemite. On reaching the east shoulder below Half Dome?s summit cable I was treated to a surprising sight: some 15 or 20 people strung out along the cable, both ascending and descending. The cable was not yet up and was lying against the rock. Hikers were forced to bend over to hold on. As is the case in all endeavors, some had an easier time than others. One gentleman seemed to have panicked half way up and was spread out on the rock with a two hand death grip on the cable and both feet off the rock. People both ascending and descending were stopped, trying to help the hapless hiker. He didn?t move for some 10 minutes before being coaxed/aided back down the cable. I watched the Half Dome cable summit scene for awhile before deciding that it was too crowded for my mood that day. I had been there before and perhaps would again, but I turned around and went back down to even more congestion in the valley without devoutly admiring what my eye had seen.
