Today

In Yosemite, rock slides and torrential flooding in the mid-1990s forever changed the park's appearance; but to be fair, we have to admit that human influence has had an even greater impact. Attendance has doubled in the past 20 years, and now more than 4 million people visit Yosemite annually; in the summer, the average daily census hits 20,000! The major difficulty facing park officials today, due to the park's increasing popularity, is balancing humanity's access to Yosemite's wonders with the need to maintain and improve the park's health. The National Park Service issued a master plan in 2000, aimed at reducing vehicle traffic in Yosemite Valley. Parts of this plan have already been put into effect, and additional changes are planned that will somewhat limit access, especially personal vehicle access, to the park. Many who love Yosemite say this is a small price to pay to protect a treasure.

It's a far different scenario at Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. They get crowded in summer, too, when RVs and slow drivers can turn into a convoy dozens of cars long -- but it's nothing like Yosemite. Sequoia & Kings Canyon are much less developed, and the spots that are developed are much more spread out. Frankly, officials here have learned a lesson from Yosemite and work hard not to make the same mistakes. The park is awe-inspiring, with voluptuous canyons and some of the most spectacular trees and vistas in the Sierra, but they are not all crammed into a 7-mile valley, and you won't find a crowd three deep jostling for a view, as in Yosemite.

Crowds aside, there's a movement at both Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon to return the parks to a more natural state. Nowhere is this more evident than in Yosemite Valley, where nature is forcing officials to make changes long planned but never implemented. For the past 20 years, Yosemite National Park had been governed in part by a general plan that called for restoring meadows, phasing out some campgrounds, and moving others away from waterways to reduce the human impact on rivers, streams, and wildlife. However, little progress had been made. Then in January 1997, during one of the valley's swanky annual winter events, nature took charge.

What began as a torrential downpour turned into one of the most destructive winter storms on record, and when the rain stopped several days later, Yosemite Valley was Yosemite Lake. Swollen streams and creeks swept tons of debris -- trees, rocks, brush -- into the valley, clogging the Merced River. Campgrounds were submerged, employees' quarters were flooded, and much of Yosemite Lodge was under 2 feet of water. Despite frantic attempts at sandbagging, hundreds of people were forced onto higher ground -- the top floors of buildings -- and everyone was stuck. The water was so high and so ferocious that it washed out the roads and stranded about 2,000 people in the valley, including the several hundred on hand to celebrate New Year's Eve. So much was damaged that the valley closed for almost 3 months, and, even after it was reopened, travel was restricted for several months to the park's all-weather highway alone. Although park workers managed to clean most of the fallen trees, boulders, and rocks out of the heavily populated areas in the valley by mid-1997, some backcountry trail bridges were never repaired, and a decision was made to reconsider rebuilding the hundreds of lost campsites.

The storms remind us of the history behind these parks. Millions of years of water, snow, and glaciers have carved the unique canyons of Yosemite Valley and Kings Canyon. So the folks who live here do so with a measure of understanding: They're living at the mercy of nature.

Before this event, officials at both Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon were already on their way to making some other notable changes. Both parks are renovating and reconstructing. Some meadows are off-limits to foot traffic so that grass and wildflowers can return. When new buildings are constructed, their architecture is designed to reflect or work with the natural surroundings: A restaurant in Yosemite has a wall of glass windows that looks out at Yosemite Falls; a new gift store doubles during the winter as a cross-country ski lodge. In both cases, new structures replaced existing ones, so the impact on pristine wilderness was minimal.

In Sequoia & Kings Canyon, park officials are now putting the finishing touches on a sequoia forest restoration project that they have been working on for the past 16 years. Most of the project's aims affect Giant Forest, one of the most notable stands of trees in Sequoia National Park. Old buildings have been torn down, and roads and parking lots have been moved in an effort to return this area of the park to a more natural state. The goal is ecological restoration -- to cease damaging the sequoias' root systems, repair the topsoil, plant sequoia seedlings, and get out of the way while Mother Nature does her thing. An added benefit is that without the buildings this area is more attractive.

Interestingly, park officials also hope that natural fires will return to the area once the heavy human impact is reduced. Fires are an important part of the sequoia's life. The bark of the giant trees is fire resistant, but a blaze will dry out the sequoia's cones, which then open, dropping seeds onto the fire-cleared ground, which is, conveniently, the preferred growth medium for seedlings.